Isis’s Dance
by L. Burke
Summary: Brotherhood AU:  Jim, Dean, and Caleb race against time to keep an artifact of incredible power from falling in to the wrong hands.  Meanwhile A discovery will be made that will have ramifications for the future.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Isis's Dance

By: L. Burke

Disclaimer: I own nothing but Mujib.

Summary: Jim, Dean, and Caleb are headed to the Middle East for a solo adventure. As they race against time to keep an artifact of incredible power from falling in to the wrong hands. A discovery will be made that will have ramifications for the future of the Brotherhood.

Timeline: Brotherhood AU- Takes place after Tidia's "The Machiavellian Prince". So Sammy will not appear in this story. I'm also hoping to tie in to Ridley's stories, "Facing the Dark", "The In between Place" and, "Great, Beautiful, Terrible Things". Wish me luck.

Author's Notes and Acknowledgments:

I'd like to thank Ridley C. James for allowing me to play in her sandbox. She generously said "Go For it!" when I asked her if I could take them out for a spin.

For this sake of this story I'm playing Templar history a little loosely. I'm also taking a few liberties with sacred geometry, the "Holy Ratio" and how ancient architects and builders used it.

My first Supernatural fan fiction so suggestions and constructive criticism is more than welcome.

--------Forward----------

**-A Scholar Speaks:-**

It is said that life and death dance in a great circle. That life and death are intricately intertwined like lovers. Death stalks us from the very breath we take and life rises from the foulest refuse of death. Circle within circle, within circle. On clear nights you can hear the beat of the cosmos as it dances this sacred spiral of creation and death all around us. Look up at the sky and know at this very moment stars are dying only to be reborn. Death is part of life. It comes for all of us.

What would men pay to break away from this eternal dance you think? What would they pay for one more breath? For one more minute? Would they sell their souls? Turn on their brothers? Destroy nations?

Hear my call, young Guardian.

I am a Scholar of the Brotherhood, and by the power of the rings that binds us together I am calling out to you.

For we have one last quest to fulfill before I can join my brothers in eternal rest.

Come to me.

-------------------------888---------------------

Pastor Jim Murphy knew he was going to die.

Being in the business of hunting the supernatural and sending demons back to hell, he thought he had accepted that fact a very long time ago. He had just never pictured dying at the hands of one of his own.

Mainly, the hands of the future Knight of the Brotherhood, Caleb Reaves.

Caleb was going to kill all of them if he didn't slow this hell bent jeep down.

"Boys!" He tried to roar from the back seat over the electric screeching of a group Dean Winchester blasted at ear bleeding decimals called _Guns N Roses_.

"Boys!" He tried again to make himself heard. The dust the speeding jeep was kicking up was choking.

The only response he received was to have his dear friend Dr. Mujib Raji, fellow expert in antiquities, member of the secret organization known only as the Brotherhood, and overall pain in Jim's ass through the years, to add his voice and start bobbing his head up and down to the ungodly screeching.

Welcome to the jungle indeed.

They _were_ going to die here.

Caleb abruptly reached out and turned down the music. He met Mujib's eyes in the rearview mirror and asked, "So Doc, you really think this is a Brotherhood tomb from the First Crusade?"

"That's what I called Jim in to help confirm. Every one of the bodies found was wearing silver rings." Mujib stated. "The carbon dating of the bones and artifacts in this tomb date it at roughly around the approximate time. If this find is indeed what I think it is. It could very well confirm my theory that the Brotherhood may have inspired the founding of the order that would later become the Knights Templar."

"Mujib always theorized that the founding Templar order requested the site of the Temple Mount after the First Crusade for more than religious reasons," Jim added.

Dean, twisted from where he was riding shot gun to face them, raised an eyebrow, and asked, "Ah, so you think the legends are true and they found the Grail there?"

Mujib shook his head, "The legends connecting the Templar order to the Grail didn't pop up until later in the Twelfth century. So it's highly unlikely. If the Templars found the Grail it came into their possession later. I always speculated that an artifact of power was found at the Temple Mount during the First Crusade. I just never thought it was the Templars that found it or the artifact found was the Grail."

"How much further to the tomb?" Caleb asked.

Mujib suddenly smirked in Jim's direction, "The way Jim drives? Two hours. You or I? Forty-five minutes."

Jim stiffened and his eyes narrowed at that remark, "Not all of us drive like maniacs."

Rolling his eyes, Mujib replied, "This from the man that needed to turn around on a busy Egyptian street and did so by hitting reverse at eighty miles an hour."

"The demon chasing us didn't expect it, now did he?" Jim retorted.

Mujib gestured dramatically to Dean and Caleb, "By Allah, as the cars screeched by us, horns blaring, I thought I was going to die. What's worse? He was playing Mozart the whole time. It was horrible. Mozart was the last music I ever thought I'd hear."

"Heaven forbid, I try to introduce you to a little culture," Jim grumbled. "Let's just concentrate on getting there in one piece."

"Indeed," Mujib agreed cheerfully. "We need some traveling music." With mischief lighting up his dark eyes, he turned to Dean and asked hopefully, "You have any _Black Sabbath_?"

----------------8888--------------------

It was a cave.

Actually it was more like a vertical crack in the mountain side.

Not inspiring at all.

Caleb hoped the inside was more impressive.

"I found this remarkable discovery the same way I found all my others," Mujib informed them cheerfully.

"You got hopelessly lost and fell down a deep hole again?" Jim Murphy replied matter-of-factly.

"Of course," Mujib chirped, "But then I used my yellow Skittles to mark my trail out."

"Skittles?" The pastor turned to his friend in disbelief, "You used _Skittles_ to mark your way back to an important archeological find?"

"It's the Brotherhood. It seemed only fitting I follow a yellow brick road."

Caleb couldn't hold back his laugher any longer when Dean started loudly humming "Over the Rainbow".

Okay, now that he thought about it...

Dean was from Kansas.

Mujib did kind of resemble a Munchkin.

Though that would make Jim a really cranky Glenda, Good Witch of the North.

And from the look that Jim was shooting Dean for his little musical performance. It might be a good time to make like Toto and save Dorothy's ass.

Clearing his throat, Caleb turned to Mujib, "Okay Doc, Jim said you needed an architect to look at this place."

The doctor nodded, "I need you to tell me if Merlin designed it."


	2. Chapter 2

The inside of the structure was undeniably more impressive.

"Shit," Caleb muttered in awe under his breath as he scrawled another calculation down. "I'm feeling inadequate."

"Don't worry, Damien. Go slow. Stick with the mannequins, and those nasty dating flashbacks will pass."

"That's what I love about you, Deuce, your natural ability to kick a man when he's down.

His friend smirked from where he sat up against the wall. Taking a sip from his canteen Dean replied, "It's a gift."

Caleb reached out to accept the canteen his friend offered and sat down next to him. "Everything in this place is a near perfect ratio to either Pi or the Phi."

"Pi represents the sacred circle, infinity, God. Phi represents the life spiral, or the five pointed star of protection. Evil may not cross either symbol." Dean shrugged and added, "That's why the ancients used them, and ratios to them, in temples and other sacred sites."

Caleb raised an eyebrow, "My, my, Deana, I am impressed. Does Samantha know you've been sneaking her National Geographics?"

"I get off on proofs of irrationality." Dean retorted sarcastically. Then his jade green eyes lit up with evil mischief. "My whole goal for this trip is to get a picture of a toilet flushing backwards. I want to frame it and send it to Sammy for his birthday. That way he can brag about his big brother the world traveler."

"Coming from you, I'm sure Sam will recognize the picture for the step up in taste it truly represents," Caleb said sweetly. "You're not that far below glow-in-the-dark Elvis commemorative plates now."

"I wanted to send Sammy a picture of the Impala for his apartment," Dean grumbled. "But Jim shot that idea down along with the 'Corporate Zombie Play Set' I picked out. The college student zombie had a hollow head and ate brains."

"Jim has no appreciation for the pride we take in our utter lack of taste and sophistication." Caleb smirked.

"No kidding."

He handed the canteen back Dean. "What's blowing my mind is that the architect damned near perfectly accounted for all structural heave." He looked down once again to check his calculations, "That should be impossible, particularly in an earthquake prone region like this."

"So, you think Merlin actually did design this place?"

"If he did, I understand why people considered Merlin a sorcerer," Caleb muttered. "If this is an example of his work, he's light years ahead of his time. I did manage to uncover something. This place was laid out in a Fibonacci sequence."

"Where each number in the sequence is the sum of the two proceeding numbers," Dean said as he put the cap back on his canteen. "And we're right back to referencing the spiral."

"Exactly. The Egyptians loved using this sequence in floor plans to hide chambers in their tombs. And guess what? We're missing a number in our series."

"Meaning we have a hidden room somewhere?"

"Yup."

Dean rose to his feet in one graceful movement. He then offered Caleb a hand up, grinned cockily, and said, "Lay on, Macduff."

-------------------------888----------------------------

"The bodies here remind me of pictures of the Anasazi remains that were discovered at Chimney Rock in Colorado." Pastor Jim Murphy murmured thoughtfully as he looked at the skeletons scattered in front of him.

"Interesting how your mind drifted half a world away from where we are." Dr. Mujib Raji said looking up from the body he studied.

Ignoring that last remark, Jim continued, "It's the level of violence inflicted on these men before they died. It's mirrored at Chimney Rock."

"Deprivation is a powerful motivator," Mujib responded. "Deprive human beings of what they think is rightfully theirs. Mix it with fear and ignorance. The results are often brutal, spontaneous combustion."

"You think that's what we're seeing here?" Jim asked.

"Jim, it's your mind that drew the association," Mujib shrugged. "All I can speculate by the remains is that it is highly probable these men died defending this structure. Everything else is conjecture and guesswork."

"That's the problem," Jim snapped. He then ran a tense hand through his silver hair and started carefully pacing the length of the chamber. "I can't say my judgment is impartial or unbiased about anything right now. I thought I'd dealt with what happened in that prison years ago. But being back here..."

"Is bringing it all back?" Mujib asked quietly. "What happened was not your fault. I thought Maxim and Julian tried to kick that in to your dense skull."

"So did the therapist they forced me to see afterward," Jim replied bitterly.

Before Mujib could respond to that statement, Caleb's voice rang out.

"Hey, Doc! Dean and I think we've found the entrance to the hidden chamber."

-------------------------888----------------------------

"The hidden room should be behind this wall," Caleb announced. "You hear that sound, Deuce? That's the sound of me being right _yet_ again. Sometimes I swear my brilliance can become something of a burden."

"I'll let you flounder in the glory of this moment," Dean replied sweetly. "Since you being right happens so rarely."

Before Caleb could fire off a retort Jim added-in, "Caleb's right. The chamber is behind this wall."

"That only leaves the question of the best way to access it," Mujib muttered. "We'll have to go back for the heavy, stone-cutting equipment."

"No need," Jim said mysteriously. Suddenly the Guardian's ring started to softly glow. The stone wall before them suddenly became ice. Then, within seconds, it changed to a wall of blue-green water and formed a large puddle at their feet.

"I really hate it when he does that," Mujib sighed.

"Ah, Jim..." Caleb sputtered.

"Is there something you'd like to tell us?" Dean finished, as both young men stared down at what was once the wall.

"No," was the elder Guardian's only reply.

-------------------------888----------------------------

The first thing Dean noticed when he entered the chamber was the three inlayed, intertwining metal rings that decorated the center of the floor. The liquid metal rings were tinted in the colors red, blue, and yellow. It almost seemed the gold ring glowed and hummed in the dim light of the room.

Almost like the ring called out to him.

Caleb entered the chamber and stepped across the red ring on the floor. It started to quietly hum to him as well.

_Greetings young Guardian_, voices whispered. _We have been waiting for a Triad such as yours_.

He heard Jim shout.

But it was too late.

Dean had already stepped across into the blue ring.

A long dormant power flared.

Suddenly he was tumbling, spiraling through the past. A hundred generations of Brotherhood triumphs and tragedies stampeded through his consciousness. Images of handing a staff to a young man and ordering him to flee blasted through his mind. The feel of the cold bite of steel in his chest as a dagger landed a mortal wound. The rings hummed, time turned, and the spiral of life danced. He was part of everything, and yet he, himself, nothing at the same time.

How strange was that?

_Find the Scholar,_ the voices cried out to him.

The darkness crept in and his last conscious awareness was of a cold, dark, void and the touch of death that ran through his veins.

Then Dean knew nothing.


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Notes: I lied. Sammy will be making a brief appearance in this story.

-------------------------888----------------------------

Caleb heard Jim shout, "Dean!"

With an explosion of light the rings on the floor flared. Caleb could only compare it to standing and getting battered at ground zero. It was like being blasted by a searing, hot wind as it blew through the chamber. This energy had a presence to it. Caleb could sense it. This power had a hot spark, like the rush of a hunt in your blood.

The silver ring around his finger started to glow and hum in unison with the rings on the floor. Dean was standing in the center of the brightest glowing blue ring. He had a strange blank expression on his face, as the silver disc on his finger glowed like a supernova.

"Deuce!" Caleb yelled as he ran toward his friend.

Then suddenly it was over.

Dean collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

Caleb barely managed to catch his friend before he hit the floor. "Deuce?" He called softly as he eased his friend's body to the floor. To Caleb's horror Dean wasn't breathing and his skin was cold as ice.

Jim was rapidly at their side, "Dean?" He grabbed either side of Dean's face gently, "Come on, Son, come back to us."

"You hear him, Deuce?" Caleb barked in his best John Winchester voice as he and Jim rolled Dean in to position to start CPR, "Don't you dare piss me off by checking out on me. No way am I letting you have the last word on anything. You hear me? You bail on me now, and when I finally catch up with you in hell, you'll only wish you were dead."

"Caleb!" Mujib called, "Dean is riding the Muninn. Without a complete triad you must break the connection or it will kill him."

"How?" Caleb asked.

"You're the Knight," Mujib stated, "Reach out and try to pull him back from the void."

Caleb didn't need to be told twice.

He reached out with his mind and forced his way into Dean's mind. He felt their shared connection snap into place and he felt Dean respond, like a dim, distant star. Everything else swirling around him was chaotic, tangled impressions, impossible to comprehend. Dean was drifting, lost, in a dark, icy, void.

Caleb recklessly lunged deeper into the dark and latched onto Dean. He knew the connection wasn't going to last. It was like trying to hold someone afloat in a storm-tossed, sea. The force of the storm was dragging them both under. If he didn't do something fast, Dean was going to be lost to them.

Abruptly Caleb felt another presence helping him surface through the darkness. He would recognize that calm, steady being anywhere. _Jim_, he thought. Somehow the pastor had reached out to him and wrapped his essence around him and Dean like a lifeline. Caleb then sensed as Jim summoned someone. Whatever the pastor was doing, it was similar to no telepathic link that Caleb had ever felt before.

Another mind rolled in akin to a warm, commanding tidal wave.

Caleb recognized it anywhere.

_Dad!_

Mackland Ames's brain seemed to assess the situation with a computer-like quickness. Caleb sensed as that powerful mind, reached out and grabbed another psyche. Mac effectively shattering any merger resistance given like a hammer to porcelain. The darkness receded a little as soon as his father threw him in contact with that new mind.

_Sammy. _

Their triad snapped in to place.

It resembled a live electrical circuit coming to life. Sammy's warm strength anchored and steadied them. Power roared in and fought the darkness back similar to the sunrise chasing away the night. Caleb firmly wrapped his mind around Dean's and with all his remaining strength yanked them both back towards the direction of the light.

He came back to the real world with a grasp, his back arching in his body's attempt to pull in more air. A pair of concerned blue-gray eyes looked down into his. "Caleb's awake," Jim announced relief evident in his voice.

"Dean is breathing again," Mujib's replied.

Hearing that Caleb let the soft, grey unconsciousness that beckoned, float him away.

-------------------------888----------------------------

Caleb was lying on something soft.

It felt wonderful.

He opened his eyes to a pounding headache and the flickering light of candles.It took him a few moments to put together he was lying on a bed. The rather large blur across the room was Jim. The pastor was sitting in a chair next to Dean's bed. He looked haggard and exhausted.

Jim must have detected he was awake because he asked very gently, "How are you feeling?"

Hollow.

Disconnected.

Confused.

It took all the energy Caleb had to whisper, "Better. Deuce?"

"Dean's not awake yet," Jim replied quietly, "But he's finally coming out of shock."

Caleb gathered his reserves one more time, licked his lips and asked, "Where?"

"You're both safe. Go to sleep Caleb," the Guardian ordered softly.

Too exhausted to fight the command, Caleb closed his eyes and obeyed.

-------------------------888----------------------------

The Muninn was a thing of myth.

That's what Dr. Mujib Raji had always thought.

At least until he had witnessed Dean Winchester unwittingly tap in to it.

The Muninn by legend was the collective memory of the ancient Brotherhood. It by myth was how knowledge had been passed from one generation of hunters to the next before journals were kept. Named for Odin's raven "Memory" and forged together by the silver bands all members of Brotherhood wore. It was a product of a darker time where literacy was a rare skill, journal keeping had been essentially nonexistent and the position of Scholar had been looked upon with near divine relevance.

No Guardian in recent memory had attempted to travel the Muninn. He knew that. It was a risky thing for both the Guardian and the Knight to even attempt and doing so was no longer needed. Riding the Muninn forced the Guardian to wade though the very veil of death itself and some of them in the past had not returned.

What Dean did today should have been impossible.

Mujib needed to make a phone call.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Notes:**

I want to think everyone for the kind reviews for the last chapter. I'll be responding to them as soon as I can. I've been fighting a nasty case of the flu.

I would also like to thank Ridley C. James for allowing me to borrow "Evil Winchester Bookends" and all the questions she's uncomplainingly answered. I'm also referencing her stories "Valuables" and "Friendly Fire" here.

Counting your steps so you know how many miles you've marched. Not something I made up. The Military teaches you to do it in Basic Training.

Crossroads of Megiddo: It's an actual place and not a product of my imagination. If you know your theology it's the cross roads where the armies of light and darkness are supposed to gather for the final battle.

**Warnings:** I'm putting a language warning up for this chapter. Caleb really can be a potty mouth when he's not happy.

-------------------------888----------------------------

Caleb Reaves always had a sense of time.

He was never sure if it was an inborn thing like Dean's compass-like sense of direction or if it was the by-product of his years of training. Knowledge of when the sun rose or fell to the exact second was a skill of survival for a hunter. Similar to learning how to automatically count your steps to know how many miles you've covered. He really never had reflected on his particular talent until he watched Dean and John Winchester set their watches for dawn before a hunt.

It was his in-born internal warning system that pulled him back to full awareness. His time sense and its screaming vigilance that clock hands were quickly reaching towards the Witching Hour, the most dangerous time of the night. The hours where evil marched the world unchallenged by the light.

Entering the hours where no hunter was safe.

His eyes snapped open.

It took a moment for his brain to process where he was before the familiar layout of the room he and Deuce shared registered in his sluggish brain. Caleb felt fuzzy. Crap. Even his hair hurt. He had a headache worthy of spending a full night curled up with his old friend Jose Cuervo.

Jim better damned well have salted and burned that S.O.B.

"Caleb can you hear me?" A voice called softly.

Recognizing it was Mujib's voice. Caleb groaned and buried his face in his pillow. "Give me five more minutes, Doc."

The doctor chuckled, "I'd love to but you've been sleeping quite a while. You really should get up and drink something."

Right...

Dry desert climate equals dehydration.

Dehydration equaled an even shittier day at the office.

With a sigh Caleb tossed his covers off and swung himself to a sitting position. Caleb had to fight the wave of lightheadedness that washed over him as he sat up. He muttered, "Damn it", when Mujib reached out to steady him.

"Deep breaths," Mujib encouraged gently.

A glare was Caleb's only response. It must not have had any of its usual bad-guy-pissing-themselves punch because Mujib simply looked amused.

"Don't even bother," The doctor stated letting him go when the room stopped spinning. "I've faced down much meaner and nastier than you." Mujib nodded his head in the direction of Jim's sleeping form.

Looking over in the direction Mujib gestured Caleb could see pastor was sleeping in the chair next to Dean's bed. The lamp by the bed was still on and the book "To Kill a Mocking Bird" was open on the pastor's lap. He saw the book and grimaced. Caleb didn't want to think about the last time he'd seen it opened at someone's bedside. He didn't want to remember how sick Jim had been either or the long hours Dean had sat at Jim's bedside reading that same book out loud.

The whole mess had started with a fall at the church. A simple slip on the ice resulted in Jim tearing his ACL and needing surgery to stabilize his knee joint. Same day outpatient surgery and four weeks of a cranky Merlin on crutches was how it was suppose to go down.

It didn't.

Jim had developed a nasty postoperative antibiotic-resistant infection from the surgery. Two days before Thanksgiving Caleb had received a call telling him Dean was rushing Jim to the hospital and not even bother heading to the farm for the holiday. Caleb had met up with his father in New York and they both had taken a red eye straight to Louisville. The next few days had been nothing but a mind numbing blur of medical jargon and terror as Jim's fever continued to spike.

To put it mildly, Thanksgiving sucked.

Christmas hadn't been much better due to the pneumonia that followed.

While Mac made all the necessary medical calls. Dean had done what he always did, organized and took charge of everything else. Deuce really had stepped up to the plate after Jim got out of the hospital too. Making sure the farm chores got done, helping Mac take care of Jim, and handling all the hunts and any Brotherhood business his father and Jim threw his way too.

Caleb had felt more than a little surge of pride at how well Dean had handled all the responsibly. He had also felt more than a little guilty about it too. Caleb had been so busy with Tri-Corp at the time. The only help he could offer Dean was nightly telephone calls and the occasional weekend trip home to the farm.

Caleb worried Dean pushed himself way too hard trying to juggle it all. Despite the fact Jim was now recovered and walking only with a slight limp as a reminder of his winter ordeal. Dean had still sounded hoarse and exhausted last time Caleb had called to check in. Deuce just couldn't seem to shake a slight case of the flu that kept creeping back up on him.

Well, that hadn't eased Caleb's concern either.

Then Mujib had called.

And when the Watcher of the Crossroads of Megiddo calls requesting assistance, the Brotherhood answers.

"Caleb? Are you with me?"

Caleb took a deep breath, "Yeah, Doc. How's Deuce?"

"Sleeping."

Silently cheering the world didn't teeter when he moved. Caleb asked his next question, "What happened?"

Mujib sighed, "The Muninn."

He glared and replied, "That tells me exactly squat, Doc."

Mujib offered him a hand up, "Think of the Muninn as an ancient Brotherhood answering machine, Caleb. We walked in to that chamber and somehow hit the play button."

Caleb narrowed his eyes as he accepted the offered hand, "You mean Dean somehow hit the play button."

"It would appear that way," Mujib responded truthfully.

It was the ringing of Dean's cell phone on the bed side table that interrupted them. Shooting the offending device a look usually reserved for spiders and supernatural bad guys he reached over to the nightstand. If the ringing woke Dean or Jim up he was going to cheerfully kill whoever was on the other side at his earliest convenience.

"Reaves."

"What the fuck did you two assholes do?" Sam Winchester's voice snarled from the other end of the phone.

"Nice to hear from you too, Samantha," Caleb replied snidely. "I love how you make it a point to return calls so promptly. Should I consider this the call from Christmas you still owe us or are you getting a jump on this year's holiday shopping season?"

"Don't push me, Caleb," Sam growled. "I've spent the last twenty-four hours puking my guts up with the migraine from hell thanks to whatever stunt you two just pulled. I am in no mood for your shit right now. Where's Dean?"

"Sleeping," Caleb answered sweetly. "In fact Deuce is sleeping next to a tall, classy red-head as we speak. I'm not waking them."

He looked over at Jim and Deuce's sleeping forms, and scowled when he caught the colorful array of bruises littering Dean's face.

What the hell?

He thought he had caught Dean in time to keep him from hitting the stone floor too hard.

"Caleb."

Sam's voice snapped him back. Caleb ran his hands over his face tiredly. "What do you want, Sammy? Because I'm sure you have better things to do than worry about us."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sam demanded.

"It means Dean, Bobby and I left at least a dozen messages for you to call us over Thanksgiving and you never bothered to return any of them."

As far as he was concerned both Sam and John Winchester could both go fuck themselves. Caleb was getting tired of the two evil Winchester bookends. He really was. The casualness of the collateral damage John and Sam inflicted on each other and every innocent bystander caught up in their fallout zone was more than pissing him off. Strike one had been when Sammy hadn't wanted to acknowledge Mac at Stanford. Strike two was not returning their calls at Thanksgiving.

"I was busy," Sam stated. Like that explained everything.

"Don't you mean that Jess was home with you during the holidays and returning phone calls to your family might cause her to ask some messy questions," Caleb demanded. His next words were cold. He knew it. Caleb didn't care. Sammy needed to wake up and smell the blood that was going to be painting the walls. "I hope that piece of blonde ass is worth it, Runt."

_Worth everyone you're so thoughtlessly throwing away_.

"You do not want to go there," Sam replied, dark warning edging into his voice. "Don't even push that button."

"You want a normal life, Samantha? Fine. I don't have problem with that. Never did. My problem is with you lying to Jess about us. You continuing to fool yourself that your world is this shiny, blissful place where unicorns shoot sunbeams out their asses and where the boogie man doesn't sneak in at midnight to gut mommy." Caleb was starting to see Bobby's point about the mistake they made by sheltering the youngest Winchester like they had. "The longer you keep pretending. The longer _you_ put Jess at risk."

"I'm not your father, Caleb."

Caleb took a deep breath.

Sammy always did know how to hit below the belt.

Another charming trait he and John shared.

"You're right, Sam. You're not." He looked over at Jim's and Dean's sleeping forms again. Reminding himself this was not the time or place for a screaming match. Oh, the time was coming. No doubt about that. Sammy didn't even know he'd just earned strike three. "As for what happened, Samantha, it appears we somehow triggered some ancient Brotherhood Hoodoo shit. Mac and Jim had to yank you in to save our sorry asses."

"Is Dean alright?"

Caleb sighed, "I honestly don't know. Dean got zapped by the worst of it."

That's when Caleb heard a voice calling "Sam" in the background. Sam whispered, "I've got to go, Man. Jess is home."

"Yeah," Caleb replied bitterly, "You better go see what Jess wants. Oh, and by the way, Sammy, Thanksgiving. We were trying to reach you because Jim was in the hospital. The doctors were saying it was most likely Jim wasn't going to make it and we thought you'd want to be there." Then he abruptly snapped Dean's phone shut, ending the call.

Deuce was right.

There were days you should take simple satisfaction in embracing your inner bastard.

His gaze settled on Mujib.

Speaking of embracing one's inner bastard...

Caleb wanted answers.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Notes:**

I'd like to give a big shout out to Ridley's card campaign.

Second, I'd like to thank everyone for the reviews both good and bad for the last chapter. I know I said I'd be responding but between the flu that just wouldn't go away, a lightening strike that took out my cable internet connection for a couple of days, the anti-virus software from hell, and tech no-support. It's been a lousy couple of weeks.

**Dedication:** I'd love to say Jim's wise words in this chapter about truth and wisdom are all mine. They're not. I'd lovingly dedicate this to the wisest man I know. Not as lean, still as mean, always and forever a Marine. Happy Veteran's Day, Grandpa!

Mitakuye oyasin.

-------------------------888----------------------------

Caleb glared.

The short Arab doctor chortled, "Should I try to pretend to be frightened?"

"It would make me feel better, Doc," Caleb retorted dryly.

"You hardly resemble a fearsome Knight right now, my friend," Mujib replied his dark eyes dancing in amusement. "In fact it looks like your temper and pride are the only things keeping you upright."

Caleb's only response was to stick his chin out and stubbornly ignore the fact the doctor was probably right.

Mujib chuckled and they both headed for the kitchen. The doctor motioned for him to have a seat. Caleb took the offered bar stool at the breakfast bar as Mujib poured them both a large cup of coffee. The doctor then placed a large plate of fresh fruit and what looked like some sort of yogurt dip in front of him.

"Here eat. Getting some calories in you will help with your headache," Mujib stated. The doctor then added a bowl of spiced nuts to the food in front of Caleb. When Caleb shot him a questioning look Mujib continued, "Psychic powers burn up a lot of energy. The more psychics use their powers the more calories they need to consume. It's the basic rules of biology."

Caleb gave the doctor a thoughtful look. He had never quite thought about psychic talent in terms of physics and energy requirements before. It was an interesting angle. He'd have to mention it to his father. "What happens if a psychic can't consume enough calories?"

"Maxim," Mujib replied and shrugged over his shoulder as he walked in another room for a moment, "Always theorized blinding migraines and weight loss at first. Next step would be increasing emotional instability leading to a complete physical collapse as the body eventually gave out." Reappearing with a book the doctor sat down across from Caleb. "But I believe Maxim's theories on psychic abilities are not the topic you truly want to discuss right now."

Caleb practically purred as the hot coffee danced across his tongue. They really knew how to make coffee like the old Turkish proverb, 'Black as hell, strong as death, and as sweet as sex' in this part of the world. "What can you tell me about the Muninn?"

Mujib took a sip of his coffee. He studied Caleb over the rim of the cup for a few moments. "We're not exactly sure what the Muninn is or how it came in to being. Its origins are completely shrouded in mystery. By legend hinted it was forged by the rings and it was the Brotherhood's equivalent of seeking the ancestors."

The doctor opened his book to a specific page and handed it to Caleb. "Vague mentions in ancient Scholar's journals state that seeking out Munnin involved a very sacred ceremony. The Guardian would ingest a mixture so he would 'have death within him'. That would then allow the Guardian to 'wade through the veil' and see events of the past. Much like hitting the play button on an answering machine analogy I used earlier."

Caleb read over the ingredients quickly and decided Deuce was never going anywhere near this shit. His ancient Latin was a little rusty but the doctor wasn't kidding when he said it was toxic. This stuff was pure poison. One miscalculation in the dosage and it would be fatal.

"Remember Caleb," Mujib added quietly, "The facet the Guardian brings to the Triad is sacrifice. To perform the ceremony, to ride the Munnin, was for the Guardian to offer the one gift that was most meaningful; himself. It was a symbolic act of sacrifice. To demonstrate the Guardian was willing to face death itself for the good of his people."

"So how did Dean manage to tap in to this thing without the ceremony and drinking this crap?"

Mujib sighed, "I truly have no idea."

Caleb narrowed his eyes. He had a feeling looking in to the doctor's dark eyes Mujib was hiding something. "So speculate, Doc." Caleb knew he was being rude and didn't care. This was not a culture that believed in ever being confrontational and direct. It was very different from the West that way.

Mujib licked his lips nervously. "Caleb…"

"I see Mujib finally moved the dead body off his dinning room table." Jim's tired voice suddenly interrupted.

"_Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, show me the steep and thorny way to heaven_," Mujib retorted with a smirk that didn't quite meet his eyes. Jim limped over and took a seat on a stool across from Caleb. Mujib then grumbled at the pastor, "And leave Yorick out of this."

Yorick?

Caleb groaned.

First Dean with Macbeth and now Mujib with Hamlet.

He was riding spread eagle on the luge ride straight to Shakespearean hell.

"_Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar,"_ the Pastor retorted as he looked in the direction of table with a grimace. "The dining room table is no place for that type of thing." Jim then looked at Mujib and asked, "Would you mind…"

"Leaving you two alone for a few moments?" Mujib finished. "Not at all. I need to go check on some test results."

With that the Doctor was gone.

Jim looked down at the food in front of him for a few moments. He looked up and his blue-grey eyes met Caleb's. "I overheard your phone conversation with Samuel. Don't you think you were a little harsh?"

Caleb's crossed his arms over his chest. One of the many shrinks Mac had forced him to visit as a teenager would have said he was being hostile, closed-off, and uncommunicative.

Fuck them.

"No."

The pastor then got up and motioned towards the doors leading to the garden, "Walk with me Caleb."

Caleb sighed.

He knew a command from the Guardian when he heard it.

They walked in silence, Caleb taking in the lingering scents of exotic blooms hovering in the night air. It really didn't surprise him when Jim headed straight for the fountain in the center of the garden and gestured for Caleb to have a seat next to him.

"You know? It's said that Merlin designed these gardens," Jim stated softly. "That Galahad, on his quest in Holy Land, got homesick for the green, lush, gardens of Britain. Merlin took pity on the boy and designed this desert oasis especially for him." The pastor gestured towards the fountain. It was a beautiful golden apple tree with a serpent wrapped around its base. "The more I see of Merlin's work, the more I think he and Dean would have gotten on splendidly. They both seem to share that blasphemous, impudent sense of humor."

Caleb chuckled.

He had to agree.

It did take a certain amount of Deuce level gall to put the Tree of Knowledge in the center of Eden.

The pastor stuck his hand under the fountains gentle flow. His silver ring and hair softly glowed with the waxing moon's reflection. "We have no proof your father even knew about the potential implications of his heritage much less lied to your mother about it, Caleb."

"We don't have any proof my father didn't either," Caleb fired back quietly.

"No we don't," Jim agreed gently. "But judging your father or Samuel through the lens of your anger isn't going to help the situation."

"So you approve of Sammy lying to his girlfriend about us?" He demanded.

"I never approve of lying." Jim replied calmly. "Do you remember the gully at the farm?"

"The one you ordered me not to cross?" Caleb asked raising a questioning eyebrow. Trying to figure out where the pastor was going with this.

"Indeed," Jim nodded, "We had a lot of snow that winter and you wanted to take that shortcut to get home faster. I ordered you not to and you took the short cut anyway."

Caleb nodded, "I thought since the rabbits had no problem crossing the gully, I wouldn't either. I ended up sinking in the snow over my head and you had come and pull me out with a rope."

"Do you remember what I told you after I pulled you out?"

"That I had taken my first steps towards wisdom that day," Caleb replied.

"Wisdom knows what to do with what you know, when to do it, and how to do it." Jim stated softly. "Other times wisdom is about knowing when to do nothing despite how difficult it might be. I recognized you were going to take that short cut no matter what I said, and so I didn't try to stop you. I knew it was an important lesson you had to learn for yourself."

"You did pack a rope though," Caleb sighed.

"Exactly," Jim said. "Sometimes packing a rope is all we can do. Truth is the marker along the roads we walk in life. The result of the difficult lessons we learn along the way." Then the Guardian shot him a soft look, "The worst thing about learning to yell is you lose the ability to listen, Caleb. Don't let anger take that precious gift away from you. It has taken so much away from us already." Jim looked up at the moon for a few moments before sighing, "It may take more too."

Caleb ran a tired hand over his face, "John."

"I'm afraid so," Jim replied sadly. "That's why it's vital that cooler heads prevail right now."

Caleb took a deep breath, "We are in serious trouble, Jim, if I'm considered one of the cooler heads around here. I am so pissed at both Sammy and John right now I want to hit both of them."

Jim smiled, "All I'm asking, my dear boy, is when the time comes, pack a rope."

"Yeah, but I might be more tempted to strangle both of them with it."

Caleb felt Dean's return to consciousness skip across his mind like a stone across a pond.

Then Dean's scream pierced the night.


	6. Chapter 6 A

**Author's Notes:**

Again I'd like to give a big shout out to Ridley's card campaign.

Be sure to spread the holiday cheer!

I'm also breaking this chapter up because it's a monster.

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Leaving Jim and Caleb alone for a few moments as requested. Dr. Mujib Raji headed for his study and the telephone. He closed the door, so he wouldn't be disturbed. He then dialed a well memorized long distance number.

"I received your earlier message, Mujib" The weary voice of Dr. Mackland Ames, the current Scholar of the Brotherhood, came on the line. "Are you sure after what happened everyone is alright?"

"Perhaps," He replied cautiously. "Are you on a secure line?"

"I am now." The Scholar sounded slightly annoyed at the secrecy.

"Where are you?"

"Kentucky," Mackland informed him. "I'm at the farm scanning old hunter's journals."

"I need you in New York first thing in the morning to receive a parcel I overnighted to you. The package contains various blood samples. You will understand why I'm being cautious once you see who the blood belongs too," Mujib informed him. "We're being watched here, and I don't have the proper equipment to run the necessary tests. I didn't want to risk an outside lab."

"Exactly what should I looking for in these blood samples, Mujib?"

"Death within," The Arab doctor answered grimly. "For Jim's sake, I hope I'm wrong about this."

-------------------------888----------------------------

The dungeon stank like a choking combination of old blood, pain, and fear.

His body was a mass of agony. His tormenter's cold eyes look down at him. His half ruined face only made him look more sinister. "Tell me where the Staff of Isis is." The ropes around his wrist and ankles tighten more as the rack once again threatens to pull him apart.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." he gasped as he fought down a scream. "I know nothing of a staff."

"You're a liar, heretic, and a witch, 'Guardian'."

His only response was to spit in his captor's general direction.

The other man smiled menacingly, "Should I add enjoying being the guard's bitch to your long list of sins? Maybe I can take you off the rack and give you back to them to enjoy for a while longer? Maybe that will loosen your tongue."

"Go to hell."

The priest leaned in and whispered softy. The tone was oily, and tainted with evil. "I know you have the Staff of Isis. I know you and your men found it buried deep in the ruins of King Solomon's Temple." The priest pulled on the lever and he heard the sickening sound of cartridge giving and a joint popping. "End your torment. Tell me where you sent the Scholar to hide it."

He remained deathly silent.

His tormentor gave him that chilling smile again. "Somehow, I knew that would be your answer." Then the priest barked out to the guards on the other side of the door, "Bring him."

The bottom of his stomach fell out when the guards dragged in the struggling form of the Knight.

Soon the stench of burning human flesh became gagging. The screams of the Knight intermingled and merged with Jim Murphy's and Caleb Reaves's.

Blood flowed like a river.

Dean Winchester bolted awake screaming.

-------------------------888----------------------------

Caleb was the first to reach Dean's room.

Dean was sitting upright in the bed. Caleb quickly scanned the dim room for hidden threats and found none. That didn't make him feel any better. Dean was hyperventilating and completely unaware of where he was. Bruises were standing out in spectacular array on one side of his pale face.

Shit.

Not good.

How hard had Dean hit his head?

"Deuce?" he called softly, hoping to reach the figure in the middle of the bed. Caleb approached carefully. He knew Dean had his knife stashed somewhere within easy reach. The kid felt naked unarmed. The last thing Caleb needed was for Dean to lash out in his dazed condition and try to slit his throat.

"_Watch the hands. Hands kill."_

John Winchester's voice rang through his head as he wearily approached his best friend. Dean's hands were deadly and lightening fast as a cobra's strike. When Dean was in this state you approached warily. Twenty-six stitches had taught him that lesson the hard way.

"Deuce?" he tried again as he got a little closer. "Can you hear me?"

The flat green eyes blinked and the hyperventilating stopped. "Damien?"

"Yeah," Caleb replied as he oh-so-carefully climbed up on the edge of Dean's bed.

Dean started shaking. He hoarsely muttered, "No. No. I saw them burn you. They wanted to know where the Staff of Isis was hidden. I couldn't tell. I watched them burn you alive." Dean gagged, "The smell… Oh, God…it was like the night Mom..."

"Deuce." Caleb carefully reached out and grabbed Dean's chin. The icy chill from his friend's skin frightened him a little. "Look at me. I'm right here. It was all a bad dream."

"Dream?" Dean's green eyes blinked again.

He nodded. "Do I look dead to you?"

Dean shivered, and shook his head.

Caleb let go of Dean's chin. Then he, cautiously, so as not to make any sudden moves, carefully pulled the blanket up around Dean's shoulders. "Do you know where you are?"

"Not in the prison?"

Prison?

Okay. He definitely needed to check for a concussion.

Caleb tucked the blanket around Dean's shoulders a little tighter and checked his pupils. They were both even. No signs of a concussion. But damned if the kid wasn't so pale he was practically translucent. "No, you're not in the prison. What's the last thing you remember?"

Dean had to think about it for a few moments, "Glowing rings and a bright light?"

Caleb nodded, "Anything else?"

Dean took a deep breath, and his jade green eyes suddenly came totally back to life, "No, just the giant bug zapper and your usual pansy-ass whining. Dude, have you never heard of personal space?"

Trying not to let the relief filter into his voice, Caleb beat-hell to the edge of the bed before this situation became a blackmail-able chick-flick moment. "What is it with my bad-ass vibe lately? First Mujib and now you."

"It's the hair, Damien," Dean informed him tiredly. The kid was really trying to put up his normal cocky front. "No one's scared of a want-to-be 80's reject. Everyone knows it's the decade where wuss met rock."

Yup. It was nice to have Deuce, slayer of awkward moments, back.

Jim appeared in the doorway with Mujib following right behind him. The pastor scanned them both with his eyes and quickly asked, "Are you both all right?"

Caleb nodded, "Took you long enough."

The pastor shrugged as he slid his gun away, "Don't get old."

Dean looked at Jim. Then he turned and glared at Caleb. He caught Deuce grimacing and slightly favoring his left side when he did it. Caleb made note to check that later. Even if he had to hold Dean down and tie him to the bed to do it. "Why isn't Jim wearing his knee brace?"

Caleb shot Jim a curious look, "How can you tell?"

"By the way he's limping, Dumb-ass." Dean smacked him weakly. "I told you to watch him like a hawk and make sure he wears the damned thing."

Jim scowled and his blue-grey eyes got stormy. "Don't start, Dean. And stop redirecting from you."

Dean's eyes flashed emerald fire right back, "Then wear the brace. Mac said you need to start taking better care of yourself."

Kettle, I'd like you to meet Pot. Pot, I'd like you to meet Kettle.

Dean must have read that thought plainly on his face because Dean smacked him again, "Not one word, Damien."

Caleb glanced over at Mujib who must have been thinking the same thing. Mujib, on the other hand, was being very unsuccessful at hiding his amusement. Jim shot his friend a warning look, "Not _one_ word from you either."

"Now, why would I say anything?" Mujib responded innocently.

"Exactly why do I put up with you, Deuce?" Caleb griped good-naturedly as he reached out and pulled the blanket around his friend a little tighter. "You puked on me while we waited to board our plane."

"How is getting puked on abnormal for you? It's the common reaction once people get to know you."

"Boys, don't start." Jim interjected.

Ignoring the pastor Caleb continued, "Then you unapologetically passed out and drooled all over me for the ten hour plane trip over here."

"Hey Fucktard, you're the one that slipped me the damned roofie," Dean countered saluting him with his middle finger.

"Dean! Watch your gestures and the language," Jim ordered.

"Oh, I haven't heard anything like this since Julian and Maxim together." Mujib managed to choke out to Jim through his mirth. "You always played very unsuccessful referee for them too." There were tears rolling down his face.

Jim glared at Mujib. "What did I say about not one word?"

Mujib's only response was to laugh harder.

Caleb then added, "You never listen to a damned word I say."

"Huh?" Dean said innocently. "What did you say? I wasn't paying attention."

Caleb heard a body hit a wall and slide down to the floor laughing. He was pretty sure it was Mujib. Especially since he heard the Pastor growl, "What part of _not one word_ didn't you understand? And it's not _that_ funny. Get control of yourself."

"To top that off, you hired me Genghis, the secretary from Hell." Caleb accused.

"Boys!" Jim snapped. Then once again playing referee,"Caleb, Jan's a very sweet person. That's not nice."

"Excuse me?" Caleb fired back. "My entire construction crew and half the Brotherhood is terrified of her. She is a six-foot, tattooed, ex-biker grandmother of two. I'm almost positive she was a Hell's Angel enforcer."

"Jan is an ass-kicking secretary," Dean responded indignantly. "She has hands-on work experience at dispensing with unwanted distractions quickly and effectively. And I didn't hear any complaints about me hiring her or her skill at responding to high-stress situations with a 9 mm when the zombie tried to eat you."

"She blew the zombie's balls off." Caleb raised an eyebrow, "Who the hell lists, labels, and color-codes by order of importance besides socially inadequate, control-freaks? That only proves the woman is a psychopath."

A choked, "Please stop" came from the floor.

"Mac does," Dean answered matter-of-fact. "Your father thinks she's a miracle worker. Since we actually could _find_ your desk after she was finished with your office."

Caleb snorted, "That's only because she rats out my activities to him constantly and Dad didn't read her résumé. Under future goals and aspirations she wrote 'Killing my Ex-Son-in-law'."

"She plots downsizing moves carefully."

"Boys!" Jim barked.

"All I know is she worships you. That should have been my first clue she was a list-wielding, office-organizing, peanut-butter-cookie-baking, artistic-vibe-destroying ball of pure malevolence," Caleb deadpanned as he watched Dean shiver. He placed his hand on the side of Dean's face to check his temperature.

"Damien, what did I tell you about personal space?" Deuce croaked as he squirmed out of reach. "If you want to embrace the Haiku-spewing, touchie-feelie crap go pull out your inflatable girlfriend."

Jim must have caught Dean's shiver too because he roared, "Enough!" Caleb swore the walls vibrated. The room suddenly became silent.

"Are you done?" Jim asked, exasperated, to the figure on the floor.

Before Caleb could blink, in one smooth move, Mujib was on his feet.

Caleb did a double take at the Doctor's speed. It was the first time Caleb had really seen the hunter carefully hidden behind the Doctor's cheerfully, easy-going, academic exterior. He remembered vaguely Jim telling him about how presenting a cheerful front was a cultural thing here. It was rooted not only in the dessert tribe's hospitality traditions, but was also considered a vital part of Charity, one of the Five Pillars of Islam. They firmly believed you should never burden another with troubles if you could help it.

It suddenly occurred to Caleb that since he had regained consciousness the Arab doctor had been working awfully hard at being cheerful.

Without a doubt, Mujib was hiding something from them.

**Continued in Part B- Coming Soon**


	7. Chapter 6 B

**Author's Notes:**

The legend of the jade dragon stated here is not mine. It's a traditional story.

"Blow me to Bermuda" is not mine either but my little bow to Disney's Merlin in "Sword in the Stone".

I'd really like to take the time to openly thank Rid for all her help, patience, and input. This part is much better thanks to her taking time to offer her thoughts and suggestions on few things. Here's hoping she doesn't mind my little bow to "Company of Dragons".

-------------------------888----------------------------

If Jim came to the same conclusion about Mujib that Caleb did, the pastor chose to ignore it for the time being.

Instead, he walked over and sat on the edge of the bed opposite from Caleb. The casual move effectively boxed Deuce in between the two of them. With no room to squirm, Dean had no choice but to accept being fussed over.

He had to admire Jim's style.

Mujib sensing he was an intruder at the moment, looked at Jim, "I'm going to put some food on to heat." With that the doctor turned on his heel and headed out of the bedroom.

Giving Dean a concerned look the pastor reached out and laid a gentle hand on the side of his face. "You're still like ice, my boy."

Dean shot Jim a suffering look, "I'm fine. Stop fussing, Skin Horse." Then Dean scowled at him. "Dude, what did I tell you about personal space?"

Caleb's only response was to smile sweetly and not budge.

Jim carefully tilted Dean's face to inspect the bruises. You could tell the pastor didn't like what he saw. "You don't appear to have a concussion. How are you feeling? And don't try to hide in plain sight."

Dean rolled his eyes and Caleb smirked when Jim said those words.

He still remembered the day Jim told him the story of the origins of jade dragons and their uncanny ability to 'hide in plain sight'. Dean had still been the silent, feral, little creature he had reverted to after his mother died. John needed to take Sammy to the doctors, and Mac had 'suggested' John assign Caleb the baby-sitting responsibilities for the day. Arming Caleb with only a twenty and the advice of if he needed back-up to track down Jim outside. John had then taken a screaming baby Sammy and walked out the door.

Caleb's first baby-sitting gig had not gone well.

It had taken all of five seconds for the difficult, five year-old to slip right out of Caleb's sight and disappear. After an hour of fruitless searching and not being able to track the brat telepathically. Caleb had finally admitted defeat. Acknowledged he needed help and gone looking for the Pastor.

When he had found Jim the scene had been right out of "Huckleberry Finn". The pastor was down at his pond, sitting up against a tree, dozing in the sun, with his favorite fishing hat lazily pulled over his eyes. Hearing Caleb's approach one twinkling blue-gray eye peeked out. "How are things going?"

It had taken all the self-control the fourteen year-old possessed not to kick him.

Jim pushed the hat up. "Have you ever heard the story of how jade dragons came in to being and why they hide, Caleb?"

"No." Caleb couldn't for the life of him figure out what this had to do with anything.

"Once there was this tiny, little Carp," the pastor held his thumb and finger a small distance apart. "One day this bold, little fish saw the top of a very high mountain and he was determined to climb it. He swam upstream, climbed rapids and waterfalls letting no obstacle stand in way of his goal. He eventually reached the top of the mountain. The Carp didn't know it at the time, but this mountain was very special. At the top of this mystical mountain was a 'Dragon's Gate'. When the Carp jumped through the magical, flaming gate he was transformed in to the very first jade dragon."

Caleb had to fight down the urge to scream. He had lost Dean. John was going to kill him and the Pastor Jim seemed unperturbed. In fact, he was sitting here telling Caleb fairy tales. Not only was the Pastor weird. He was maddening.

Why did his father insist he spend time with this man?

Caleb took a deep cleansing breath and gleefully visualized what he was going to do to that little, green-eyed fiend when he finally found him. "Let me guess? The dragons had to learn to hide because humans came to fear them for their power and wanted to destroy them."

The pastor looked pleased Caleb had decided to work his puzzle. "Actually the very opposite happened. Jade dragons had to learn to hide because greedy humans wanted them for their own selfish purposes. You see, not only did the jade dragon's mere presence grant incredible good fortune and protection to all those around them. But they're the only dragons with the ability to grant wishes and second chances. Powerful emperors and warlords hunted and tried to cage them. Wars were even fought over the gifts their presence brought."

Caleb was getting a headache. "So jade dragons learned to hide."

Nodding the pastor continued, "Oh yes, they did. The only problem is jade dragons are by nature courageous, sentry dragons. They're happiest when they're protecting others. So hiding made them very sad. Despite their wariness of humans, the dragons eventually did decide to come back and live among us. The dragons even learned the perfect way to hide was to hide in plain sight."

Caleb took another cleansing breath and called on every meditation technique his father ever taught him. He had a feeling the pastor knew where Dean was. "So if jade dragons are so good at hiding. Where do you hunt for them?"

"Oh, they always leave clues. First, you need to look for a Lotus bloom."

Caleb fought the urge to stomp his foot. The only thing stopping him was his father's voice echoing through his mind reminding him that fourteen year-olds did not throw temper tantrums. "Lotus bloom?"

"Oh yes," the pastor replied. "Lotus flowers always bloom where a jade dragon is near. Lotus blooms represent a person's ability to float above the muddy waters of anger and disillusionment to appreciate the gifts heaven has given them. So where you have a Louts bloom, you always have a jade dragon."

Caleb counted to ten. "And once you find the Lotus bloom, then where do you search?"

Pastor Jim's eyes danced with mischief. "Once you find the Lotus bloom then you must look down."

"Look down?" Caleb demanded rubbing his head.

"Oh yes," the pastor nodded, "Jade dragons are very wary creatures. They look for humility in all that approach them. That's why you must look down to find them. The dragons are wise enough to know the humble person rarely stumbles during their journey in life." The pastor pulled his hat back over his eyes. "You now know where to look, Caleb. Go find our elusive jade dragon before John comes home."

It had taken Caleb another half hour of searching but he did eventually find the lotus bloom. It was in Jim's portable water garden by the back porch. Looking down in to the crawl space under the porch his eyes made contact with a pair of mistrustful, flat, jade-green ones.

The little brat had been hiding in plain sight all along.

Then Caleb had made the big mistake of reaching in to try to drag Dean out.

It appears Pastor Jim had forgotten to point out one important detail in his story.

Jade dragons had claws.

Sharp ones.

A few moments later Caleb was sitting in the grass inspecting his bleeding arm when a shadow fell across his vision. A first-aid kit and plate of peanut-butter cookies were handed to him. The pastor then dropped down on to the ground next to him. "Did I forget to mention that jade dragons teach us one other very valuable lesson?"

Opening the first-aid kit, and glaring. Caleb asked casually, "Oh really? What's that?"

Jim grinned at him, stretched out in the grass, and then pulled his hat once again over his eyes. He was settling in for a long stay. "Patience, my boy. They teach us patience."

It was Dean's attempts to squirm out of Jim's grasp that pulled Caleb out of his thoughts.

He rolled his eyes and sighed.

There were days Caleb still felt like he was trying to lure an obstinate five year-old out from under the back porch.

"There doesn't appear to be any lasting harm done," Jim pronounced when he was finally through inspecting Dean. "I'm going to track Mujib down to see if he needs any help with the food. Caleb, stay here and assist Dean getting dressed." Dean opened his mouth to protest and the Pastor cut him off with one look. "There will be no objections. Either Caleb stays here or you stay in bed. You're choice."

Sullenly, Dean replied, "Fine."

Patting Deuce on the side of the face the Pastor replied, "I do love it, when you decide to be reasonable." Jim winked at Caleb as he got up off the bed, "It happens so rarely."

Caleb chuckled.

Dean smacked him again. "Not one word, Demon Boy."

Jim's last words as he walked out the door were, "Remember, Caleb, patience. They teach us patience."

Glaring at where the pastor existed. Dean muttered, "I hear Jim curse, 'Blow me to Bermuda' once. I'm outta here."

Caleb smirked as he got up and headed over to the dresser Dean was using, "Oh, please Deana, Merlin has you whipped and you know it. That's why you've spent the last four months at the farm playing chess and doing jigsaw puzzles." Then eyeing the doorway wearily he added, "You don't suppose Jim's turning Mujib in to a toad or anything do you?"

"I doubt it," Dean replied shaking his head. "If Jim could do something like that I'm pretty sure Mujib would be deep-fried toad legs by now. Especially after the three hours we spent wandering the airport looking for Doc's car."

That was very true.

Mujib had an appalling sense of direction. Doc was a fine example of how any group of people could end up wandering the desert for forty years.

Pulling a drawer open, Caleb looked over at his friend, "You're taking the whole melting wall thing rather calmly."

"I acknowledge, around Jim, strange things simply happen." Dean slowly swung his feet over the side of the bed. "I don't ask. I don't want to know."

"Sammy called while you were out," Caleb stated looking back down at the drawer and not meeting his friend's eyes.

"You two went at it didn't you?" Caleb's silence was all the answer Dean needed. Dean sighed, "You know? Sometimes I think the biggest gulf between Sammy and us is Sammy sees 'normal' as this ideal place. It's all he wants because he's never had it. You, I, and Dad, on the other hand, had normal once and normal fucked us over so badly we don't want anything to do with it."

"Yeah, I know," Caleb agreed. "The problem is I don't see us bridging that gulf anytime soon." Trying to lighten the mood Caleb added, "Besides I think the pissy bitch is still holding a grudge about the Brownie."

"You did splatter it all over his prom date."

"Yeah." Caleb replied lightly, "Still. Sammy didn't need to get his panties in such a bunch about it."

Deuce cleared his throat. Then in a voice so soft Caleb could hardly hear him, he said, "Harland stopped by the farm to visit when Jim was recovering."

Caleb looked up from the drawer he was going through, "What did Tweedledee want?"

Caleb detested Harland Sawyer. The man was vermin. He'd never seen anyone with the talent to verbally knock someone around with a smile on his face like Harland could.

"He dropped a get-well gift off to Jim."

Hopefully, Jim burned it.

"And?" Caleb prompted as he pulled a gray sweatshirt out of the drawer and closed it. He couldn't help but notice the sweatshirt was one of Sammy's.

"Harland asked if Mac and Jim were looking in to new candidates for Scholar since Sammy broke ties with the Brotherhood." Dean looked in to his eyes and the kid's eyes were so earnest and full of pain. "Are they?"

"Not as far as I know," Caleb responded truthfully as he handed the sweatshirt to his friend.

Dean licked his lips nervously, "Harland got me thinking."

"About what?" Caleb had a very bad feeling he wasn't going to like this conversation.

Deuce looked down at his feet. "I want you to consider recommending me for the position of Gungnir."

"What!" Caleb demanded. He felt like he had been sucker punched. Shit. He had seen a lot of things coming, but never this. "Do you even know what the Gungnir is?"

Meaning 'Unwavering One' the Gungnir was named after Odin's mystical javelin. It always hit its mark and always faithfully returned to Odin's hand. The Gungnir's responsibility was to carry out any death sentence the Guardian handed down.

Dean's eyes flashed as he threw the sweatshirt on and stood up. "I'm not stupid. I know Gungnir is the Brotherhood's title for executioner. I am also aware that most times either the Guardian or Knight assumes the title and carries out the responsibility."

Crossing his arms over his chest, Caleb replied," Then you know no one in the Brotherhood has held the position of Gungnir in years. Hell, the last official death order was handed out by Julian Smith."

"All I know," Dean replied softly as his green eyes met Caleb's gold ones. "Killing is the one thing I've always done well. I can do the job. And if it takes the responsibility off your shoulders: Even better."

Caleb met those jade eyes and hated what he saw there. He was eight years older, but Dean had probably seen as much, or possibly even more, violence than he had.

"What brought this on, Deuce?" Caleb asked softly. "What did Harland say to you? That Brotherhood is going to kick you to the curve now that Sammy's gone? That we only kept you around all these years because Sammy was being groomed for Scholar?"

"Harland asked me the obvious," Dean stated flatly.

"Enlighten me."

"He asked me what I planned to do when the new Triad came to power."

"Because the new Triad won't have any use for someone with only a high school diploma. Is that it?" Caleb demanded. "That the only thing you're ever going to be smart enough for is muscle or dirty work?"

Dean's blank face said it all.

Caleb hoped Harland Sawyer had a nice hot fire waiting for him in Hell.

"Will you consider the recommendation or not?" Dean demanded.

"No."

"I walk in on the most entertaining discussions." A stranger's voice suddenly interrupted.

They both spun around and did a double take.

The man standing before them may have been handsome once if the unruined side of his face was any indication. On the other side of his face, however, the facial scars were horrific. It was the cold glint of madness in his eyes, though, and not the facial scars that made Caleb want to grab Dean and run.

Dean's face held a complete look of shocked, revulsion, "This is impossible. You're the priest from my dream."

The man smiled. The evil malevolence in it made the hair on the back of Caleb's neck stand up. "My, my, I stop by to call on my old friend James to chat about finally getting this cursed thing off." He held up his hand so they both could see the black tinted silver ring on his finger. "Look what I stumble on instead."

The silver band on Caleb's finger started to vibrate in warning.

A shot rang out.

Caleb didn't think twice.

He grabbed Dean and hit the floor.


	8. Chapter 7

**Author's Notes:**

**Dean/ Decanus**- The name 'Dean' has two meanings. In Scottish the name means 'From the valley'. From Latin Dean translates to "Leader" or "Leader of Eight" it originated from a title in the Roman army.

**Caleb/Hound-** Caleb translated from Hebrew means "Bold and Faithful" or "Dog Heart" or "Hound". I realize there's some on going debate about the translation.

**The use of phosphorus in weapons**- Not my original idea the military has been using white phosphorus in weapons since WWI and it is still used today. Tracer Rounds would be a good example of this. I'm just taking some liberties with Dean and Caleb's delivery system.

**ORT**- Again not my original idea. Military has been used this basic rehydration formula for years.

-------------------------888----------------------------

The bullet stopped in midair.

Inches from the strangers head.

Holy Shit!

That shouldn't be possible.

The stranger tilted his head and studied the bullet calmly. "I see the years have done nothing to curb your red-headed temper."

Standing in the doorway Jim slowly lowered his gun. "Back away from the boys, Natas."

The ring on Caleb's finger continued to vibrate in warning. It didn't need to. Their uninvited guest's raw psychic power hit at Caleb's mental shields like a hammer. Natas moved his head in a bizarre jerking motion as he studied Jim. That wasn't good. Only the truly dangerously deranged moved like that. Caleb knew from personal experience.

Elkins had moved that way.

So had his father the night he ended Caleb's innocence with two gun shots.

Dean pushed Caleb off of him and they crawled towards the beds. Caleb wanted to reach his stash of weapons. He was feeling exposed. Natas made his skin crawl and Caleb didn't do vulnerable well. A weapon in his hand right now would make him feel so much calmer.

If you can't run from your fears: Kill them.

It was a John Winchester philosophy that Caleb enthusiastically embraced.

Abruptly, Natas' eyes warmed and something very human rolled into them. It was like a veil lifting. He smiled. The grin lit up his face and even with the facial scars he suddenly became striking. It gave you a glimpse of the man he must have been once. "It is nice to see you again, Jim."

Jim looked like someone sucker punched him. Putting the gun away the pastor swallowed thickly, and replied, "You too, Nate." Jim took a deep breath and you could almost see the effort it cost him to center himself. "It's been a long time. Why did you come?"

Nate looked at them and yet didn't see them. "I felt you on the winds. You always tasted like the stormy, wild places. Blues and browns, like fins, wings, and fur. I sensed your power and two others." Then Nate's glance roamed to Dean and him. "One tasted red and orange, fire and steel. The other like cool deep healing springs and moonlit lakes with mysteries yet to be discovered." He looked at Jim. "Only Jude ever had such brilliant blues and greens." He studied Dean again with intense interest. "I thought perhaps…"

Pain was coming off of Jim in waves. You could practically drown in the agony reflected in his blue-grey eyes. "You thought what, Nate?"

"That he might be another healer like Jude was."

Jim looked like he had been gutted.

From Jim, Caleb got the impression of humming. Almost like whale songs skipping across the ocean. A vast web with all the unique tunes connected and answering one another. Nate's song, however was off-tune, not connected, like a piano with one key badly out of tune. That's all he got before Jim threw up his unreadable walls with a slight mental slap.

Caleb's breath caught in the back of his throat. He and Dean exchanged a look. They both suddenly knew with sickening certainly what happened. What caused Nate's horrifying facial scars.

Gunshot point-blank to the head.

God.

Jim took another deep breath. "Nate, you took that bullet rescuing me. Please let me try to help you."

"Like the rest of the rest of the Brotherhood tried to help me?" Nate demanded. You could see the madness rolling in his eyes like the tide hitting the shore.

Then the doors slammed shut and every window and mirror in the room exploded.

Dean grabbed his head in distress. Caleb felt the raw psychic energy hit his mental shields like a sonic boom. It felt like a bolt of lightening blasting through his head. Everything not nailed down started flying around the room like they were caught up in a tornado's vortex.

Jim stood there, the calm eye of a storm. "Mackland could…"

"Liar!" Nate roared. "I can taste your lie like rotten fruit on my tongue, Guardian. The Scholar would help me like Victor wanted to help me."

Jim looked his old friend in the eye, "Victor did want to help you."

"Victor sided with Porter," Nate hissed. "They wanted to lobotomize me. The Triad voted to hack the remaining 'psychic' part of my brain out. They wanted to put me down like a dog."

Jim looked tired. "That's not true. But they had to do something. You killed, Jude."

Nate gave the pastor a grief stricken look. He suddenly looked like a young child on the brink of tears. "I didn't mean too, Jim. Jude was my best friend. I lost control."

"I know that." Jim reached out and laid his hand on the damaged side of Nate's face and looked him deep in the eyes. "I know you never meant to hurt anyone." The pastor was using the same soothing tone he used when he was trying to calm a child. "Please let us try to help you."

"You were always an older brother to me, Jim," Nate whispered softly. "That's why I came to warn you Janfar and his men are looking for you. They've heard you're back in the region." Jim and Nate's eyes met for a few moments. "And I pray someday you'll forgive me for what I must do."

Without warning Jim flew across the room and hit the far wall.

"Jim!" He and Deuce shouted.

The pastor dropped to the floor, and didn't move.

Deuce bolted for Jim and started dragging the unconscious pastor towards them. With no hesitation Dean was leaving himself completely open.

The stupid fucking idiot.

Caleb grabbed the .45 he kept stashed by his bed. He fired a couple of shots in Nate's direction hoping to draw attention away from Dean. He really didn't think the gun would do him any good. Luck was not being his whore today.

"Because it ends here tonight," Nate stated softly. The air around him started to shimmer with power.

Oh yeah, Nate was definitely a few fries short of a Happy Meal.

"How about we take a rain check on that? Do lunch sometime?" Caleb asked as he dove out of the way of a large piece of antique furniture that was sent hurling in his direction.

Dean dragged Jim over to where Caleb was. It barely passed for cover. Deuce tapped him on the shoulder, and with his hands, signed in Sign Language, _'The Heat and stillness around us. Do you feel it?'_

Mackland had taught Dean sign language during the time Dean refused to speak to anyone. It had been a desperate, unconventional, and last ditch effort to get Dean to communicate. The doctor's reasoning at the time had been if Dean would not speak verbally maybe he'd start to communicate by another medium.

They still used it today as a method of communication in situations when they didn't want overheard. Going back and forth also tended to throw telepaths off like suddenly switching gears, like changing suddenly from English to Chinese. Sign Language had a very different flow, framework, syntax, and different parts of the brain.

"Yeah. And that means what exactly, Deuce?" Caleb replied as he bobbed behind the bed to avoid a rather large object flying for his head.

Dean's face became completely blank. "Party time,_" _he responded sarcastically. Then he signed, "_If Nate is a strong enough telekinetic to rub air molecules together…"_

Nate could ignite the air around them.

Fuck.

Pyrokinesis.

That's new.

Cursing under his breath, Caleb glared at his friend. "You are just the bluebird of happiness shitting on my shoulder today aren't you, Deanna?"

"On Flambé' is not the way I want front row seats to your long anticipated family reunion down south, Damien."

The roof above them groaned as it protested the beating it was taking.

Dean used himself to shield Jim's unconscious form. Dust and loose debris rained down on them. "I'm not sure how much of this punishment the roof supports can take either."

That made two of them.

Caleb glanced as Nate took a step towards where they were concealed. The air around them got a little warmer. He jerked his head towards Nate, "Any ideas about stopping Carrie over there?"

Caleb sensed as Dean's mind quickly sorted through the various scenarios in front of them with incredible speed. It always amazed him how quickly and coolly Dean could break the world down in to trajectories, speed, motion, physical space, and possible angles of attack.

"Maybe. You have any of our experimental ammo clips with you?"

Caleb glanced at his friend and raised an eyebrow. "The ones with the holy water or the white phosphorus?"

"The phosphorus," Dean replied. "We're going to try to fight fire with fire."

"Like firefighters setting back fires?"

The roof supports moaned above them once again and more chunks of wreckage fell.

Dean nodded as he threw himself over Jim again. "We use the ammo and set a fire in the room. The fire we set ought to draw the oxygen towards it. It should keep the air moving and him from broiling us."

Caleb smirked at Deuce as he popped his regular clip out of his .45. "And to think Johnny always bitched at me when I took you down to see the fire trucks. I don't care what that poor traumatized speech therapist said about you."

"Especially, since the cops never bothered to run the prints on that lighter."

"Details. Details." Caleb grabbed the phosphorus clip and loaded it up. He loved this gun. It had been a hand-crafted birthday gift from Deuce. Sending a silent apology to Mujib, for what he was about to do. Caleb aimed for the wall with the curtains. The phosphorus shells hit their target and exploded in to flame.

The fire spread fast.

Nate was totally oblivious to the burning room around them. He studied Caleb for a moment. "You're a telepath. Why do you insist on fighting for them? For Brotherhood? For the _Norms_? Don't you realize they wouldn't hesitate to turn on you?" In the smoke and light of the burning fires Nate with his scars resembled Lucifer himself escaped from hell.

Caleb was truly starting to understand exactly why his father hated the term 'Norm' and refused to use it.

What a hate filled word.

"That's old news, Nate," Caleb answered. He leveled his gun. "Trust me."

"Step aside young, Hound. I and your friend have much to discuss." Then Nate stated, "Don't we, Decanus?"

Recognizing his name in Latin, Dean stiffened and clutched Jim a little closer to him. "I don't understand."

Then Nate smiled at Dean, but it was the cold, glint of insanity shining in his eyes that alarmed Caleb. "The tastes of old power rising back to being where life and death cross. The long buried fragments of a dream before waking. Handing the staff of Isis to a young man and ordering him to flee. It sings to me Walker of the Veil. I can smell and taste it like the sea on a breeze."

"Back away from him now!" Caleb growled. He didn't want Nate anywhere near Dean. Caleb didn't want to use the phosphorus shells close range but he would if had to. He'd take the chance at accidentally inhaling the stuff.

Ignoring the warning Nate took a threatening step towards Dean. Then he stopped and looked down at Jim. "Playing possum?"

The pastor opened his eyes. For a moment, Caleb swore, they lit with a blue flame. "Asking for help," the Guardian replied mysteriously.

Then in a blinding blur of movement a black panther was there. In a blink of an eye the powerful cat jumped through the open window. Headed straight for Nate's back. With a hundred and eighty pound wall of fur and muscle hitting him straight on, Nate went down.

Hard.

Claws and hands flew in a tangle of motion. Before the leopard could get a kill bite, the panther was sailing across the room. In an incredible feat of aero-gymnastics the huge cat twisted and turned in midair and managed to land on its feet. With a leap the large panther was standing next to Caleb roaring its challenge to Nate.

The sound of wood cracking over their heads signaled fire had reached the roof's main supports.

They didn't have much time to get out of here.

Nate staggered to his feet. He was bleeding badly. "You won this round, Guardian." Then Nate looked at him and Caleb felt pressure building behind his eyes. "A gift from me, Hound."

"Caleb!" Jim shouted.

He didn't even have time to scream.

Caleb's world splinter to pieces as Nate with one psychic shot shattered Caleb's mental shields. They crumpled before Nate's power like brick walls during an earth quake. The voices and thoughts roared in like a tidal wave with no sea wall and no way to resist them. Caleb was pushed under so deep and fast he didn't even have the consideration to scream. He was drowning in the charge of thousands of people's thoughts, hopes and dreams. Being washed away like a river's sudden rush erodes the shore.

He felt arms catch him as he fell, the distant heat of the fire as it drifted closer, and then the sensation of dropping.

Then the flood of voices tore him away.

-------------------------888----------------------------

He was held by a comforting presence of colors and lights.

It was beautiful drifting on this rainbow-scape of silvers, blues, greens, and violets.

Ice.

He was enclosed by walls of ice. Protected and guarded by water in its hardest, strongest elemental form. One of water's many forms that could cut like razor sharp steel or grind the hardest mountains down. The ice somehow blocked the voices. Either absorbed or reflected the voices back with its frozen, glaciered walls.

That elemental presence wrapped around him and guarded him in this secret, tranquil, inner-world.

It was so quiet here.

He reveled in silence.

But soon the presence called him. It pulled at him softly at first and then louder and with more and more urgently. Flashes of memories danced before him. Green eyes, rope swings, and summer walks in the park. That cord of silver drew him back. It yanked him towards awareness like a river to the sea.

It was a summons he couldn't deny.

The next thing he was conscious of was the warmth of a body, a heart beat, and the soft sound of hymning. Caleb remembered the tune. Dean used to sing Sammy to sleep with it.

He willed his eyes open and his gold eyes met worried jade ones. The hymning stopped and Dean looked down at him. "Damien?"

Caleb licked his lips and tried to arrange his thoughts in something that resembled order. God, he felt like limp spaghetti.

Twice in how many days?

Son of a…

"Nate?" he managed to croak out.

"Gone." Dean replied gently.

"Where are..?" He tried to move his head to see where they were.

"We're in Mujib's underground library," Dean replied. "It was the best psychic triage spot we could think of."

Huh?

Caleb blinked in confusion.

Caleb turned his head just enough to see Jim sitting across from them. The pastor was holding an ice pack to his head with one hand and petting the panther with the other. The midnight black leopard was sitting there purring loudly like a happy, contented kitten.

Caleb eyed the great cat warily.

In response the panther yawned showcasing a set of teeth that reminded him exactly why the leopard was considered one of nature's top killing machines.

Nice kitty.

Jim looked up from where he was stoking the panther's dark fur and added, "After Nate blew your mental shields apart. Dean remembered one of Josh's lessons about warding and multiplying psychic energy through aligned crystals. He proposed that the millions of tiny unaligned quartz crystals in the sandstone bedrock would have the opposite effect and act as a buffer for you. It was very fast thinking on Dean's part." It was hard to miss the hint of pride coloring Jim's voice.

Dean shrugged embarrassed. "I had to do something. Think of what would happen if that head actually exploded? The sudden release of air pressure would devastate hundreds of square miles."

Caleb rolled his eyes. "I'm feeling the love there, Deana." Someday he was going to figure out why Dean was so reluctant to showcase that quick mind of his.

Dean handed him a water bottle and grinned. "Speaking of love. Here. Mujib wanted some fluids down you. It's Dad's ORT."

ORT or Oral Rehydration Therapy was an old military recipe. It was essentially oral IV fluids. It consisted of one tablespoon of sugar, pinch of salt mixed in a liter of water. Despite the numerous sports drinks out on the market it was still considered the best way to keep electrolytes up and fight off dehydration.

The stuff tasted like absolute shit.

Caleb scowled. "Couldn't you have at least put some flavoring in it?"

Dean smiled at him sweetly. "After you and Dad announced I needed more experience at handling 'explosive situations' and made me sleep in the tent with Bobby after he ate baked beans on our last hunt. Be thankful I didn't spit in for a little extra salt."

"Fine. If I drink that crap, "Caleb grumbled, glaring at the bottle, "We're flying to India before we go home to see the Taj."

"If you drink this crap," Dean retorted sarcastically holding the bottle out to him again. "We might be able to stave off one of your brain-fry migraines and me having to hold the barf bucket under your head all night. Now suck it up. Be a man, or at least as close as you can manage Kala, and stop whining."

He took the bottle and slowly sat up with Dean's help. He rubbed his head and tried to look pathetic. It didn't take too much. "Accept it, Florence Nightingmare. We will see the Taj."

"It's a tomb, Damien."

"It's one of the architectural wonders of the world."

"Okay, it's a pretty tomb," Dean stated-matter of fact. "I'm still not getting on a plane to see it."

"How can you not value it? The Taj is considered the finest example of a style that mixes all the elements of Persian, Turkish, Indian, and Islamic architecture." Caleb took a sip from the bottle and grimaced. "What were you? Raised in the wild by wolves?"

Dean raised an eyebrow. "You _have_ met my Father and Bobby right?"

The bottle stopped midway on the way to another sip. "Damn," Caleb grumbled. "I walked in to that one."

Dean grinned at him evilly. "Yes, you did. Point and match."

Jim chuckled. "I think it's time we all went to bed. We all can use the rest."

Twenty minutes later Caleb was staring up at the stone ceiling of Mujib's library taking comfort in the soft sounds of Dean sleeping. He was thinking of Nate and that last shot. Caleb knew Nate had taken to show how powerful of a telepath he was. To demonstrate that he could demolish Caleb's his mental blocks with ease. Scare him shitless.

The plan had worked magnificently.

He looked over at Deuce's sleeping form.

It was amazing, how when Dean was sleeping he resembled the six year-old kid that followed him around the park.

Okay, Nate scared him.

But Caleb spent his entire adult life hunting down and destroying the dark things that terrified him.

This wasn't over.

Not even close.

Nate would be back. Deuce had caught his attention. And Caleb had a very bad feeling Nate wasn't going to quit until he achieved his delusional objectives. Whatever the hell they were.

He looked over at Dean again.

Taking out a character straight from a Steven King horror novel, however, was going to be a tough order even for him.

But hey…

What's life without goals?


	9. Chapter 8

**Author's Notes:**

Whoo Who!

I'm back!

After a flash drive blowing up on me, buying my first house, a major home remodel, and finally a move to said new house. I want to thank everyone for the notes of encouragement sent and not to mention the patience. Now I'm actually in my new place updates should be flowing much more regularly.

This chapter references "Paper Tiger" and Griffin stating that Jim had some very dark, wild days when he first joined the Brotherhood before finding his path to the church. I'm taking liberties and I know it.

I also took some freedom with Brotherhood tribal culture and law.

It always bugged me that Dean didn't put 2+2 together and add up he was the next Guardian.

* * *

**-A Scholar Speaks:-**

It is said leaders are born.

I disagree.

Leaders are forged like the finest of blades.

They are crafted from the fires of betrayal, beaten and strengthened by the blows of tragedy, and finally cooled and tempered in the waters of hope. It is only after all those elements come together true leaders are shaped.

Come to me, young Guardian.

I am weary and it is time for my spiral to turn.

My brothers call to me from beyond the veil.

Hear my call.

* * *

"Exactly what am I looking at here, Mujib?" Caleb asked the next morning as he studied the ground penetrating radar images on the computer screen in front of him.

"That's what I was hoping you could tell me," Mujib replied from across the lab. "I've never seen anything like it."

Ground penetrating radar or GPR had been used to help archaeologists map dig sites for years. It was also be used in modern construction to survey bedrock at large sights to help determine if there were any large fissures or cracks that could undermine heavy foundations. Caleb was looking at a GPR image of the main chamber of the Brotherhood structure's floor. There was a layer of something underneath it that was blocking radar from penetrating beyond half a meter.

Caleb examined the image closer. "I haven't either. I don't know what it is, Mujib, but it's not bedrock."

"Agreed," Mujib nodded. "It's not the building's foundation either." Then the doctor hit a button and pulled up another image. "What ever substance we are looking at, it's in the walls too. I think we need to call Zack and see if he can make anything out of these pictures."

Caleb groaned. "Must we?"

Zack was a younger member of the Brotherhood and Mujib's overeager research assistant. Roughly a few years older than Dean, Zack was an electronic imagery specialist and an unapologetic BattleBot junkie. He was a nice kid, but he drove Caleb crazy. Zack had a very irritating tendency to talk very, very fast. Add in the kid could not sit still for more than two seconds at a time. He reminded Caleb of a punk-dyed, over-caffeinated Tigger on speed. The fact, that when they had been first introduced to Zack his hair was dyed orange and spiked only helped cement the image in Caleb's mind.

What was even worse?

Throw Zack and Deuce together and Zack tended to bring those annoying bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, and pouncy traits out in Dean too. To the point Caleb wanted to strangle both of them. He had learned the hard way not to leave Dean and Zack alone unattended with spare parts and caffeinated beverages. It was like leaving two addicts alone with a trailer full of heroine.

After a rough initial meeting, Dean and Zack had become fast friends after it was discovered Zack was a deep sea diver in his spare time. Deuce loved to cave dive and had loved it since the first day Johnny had strapped tanks on their backs for training. Leave the two of them alone and bad things tended to happen. Like Zack and Deuce putting their meager, pea-brains together and getting bone-headed ideas about going diving in the Bermuda Triangle together.

Not if he had any say in the matter.

Deuce pulls out one more map of the freaking Devil's Triangle…

Caleb swore he was kicking his ass.

Mujib shot him a big-eyed, butter-wouldn't-melt look.

"Please tell me you didn't." Caleb rubbed his head. "How long do I have?" He could already feel the migraine coming on. Then he heard Zack's voice talking to Jim upstairs.

Damn it.

The doctor smiled at him and fought valiantly to keep a straight face.

Oh yeah, it was official.

The universe fucking hated him.

"Hey man," Zack greeted him warmly as he bounded down the lab stairs two at a time and opened a Mountain Dew. One look at the kid and Caleb did a double take. Zack's hair had gone from bright Tigger orange to blue overnight.

Smurf Blue.

Hair dye _came_ that color outside the movies?

"Dean told me you guys lost most of what you packed when your room burned." Zack took a deep breath and started bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. Caleb tried not to visibly cringe and prepared for a deluge. "Anyway, afterIfinishhere. Icouldtakeyoubothtothemarketplace. Showyouaround."

He really hoped he nodded politely in the right spots as Zack went on and on without taking a breath.

Shit.

Divers lung capacity you had to love it.

"Cccooolll," Zack replied happily. "Dean will be thrilled you decided to join us."

Oh, crap.

What had he just agreed to?

"After the marketplace we were going out on my boat," Zack added. His water blue eyes were shining with excitement. "See the sites around the harbor. Do some diving. We'll have a blast."

Caleb smiled at Zack and nodded.

Him out on a boat?

Diving?

Oh, _Hell_ NO.

If humans were meant to be under the freaking water, God in his infinite wisdom would have given us gills.

Zack was opening his mouth again. Noting this could be his only shot at escape Caleb shot Mujib and Zack a charming smile. "If you'll excuse me? There's something I need to do up stairs". Then he bolted for the lab stairs much to Mujib's chortling amusement.

He was going to _kill_ Deuce.

He walked in to the blessed quiet of the kitchen. Caleb paled a little when he saw the empty Mountain Dew cans and Gummi Bear packages littering the place. He didn't even want to think about the sugar and caffeine inspired mayhem Dean and Zack were capable of. "Please tell me those are all Zack's."

The pastor looked up from the laptop he was studying. The panther was happily wrapped around Jim's feet like a housecat. "They are. Dean went for straight for, and finished, the first pot of coffee."

"You're not making me feel any better, Jim," Caleb muttered. He eyed the panther cautiously. The panther shot him an unblinking, gold gaze back. It had to be an instinctual thing with two predators co-existing in a small space. Ever since the cat had shown up they'd been sizing each other up cautiously.

"Bagheera stop that," the Guardian reprimanded gently. Then the pastor reached over and started scratching right behind the panthers ears. The ecstasy at the pastor scratching just the right spot reflected in the dark cat's gold eyes.

Caleb groaned.

He recognized the panther's name.

It was the name of the panther from the Kipling's _The Jungle Book_.

The morning was getting better and better.

He eyed the cat one more time and then poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down across from Jim. "The two of them caffeinated are like two punk-rock gummibears at an all night gummiberry juice rave. They bounce here and there and everywhere."

"Very true," the pastor chuckled. Jim obviously recognized the reference to the old Disney cartoon. Sammy used to love it and would never miss it. The Pastor's eyes sparkled with amusement. "On the bright side, Mackland will be so pleased. Dean finally made a friend his own age."

"Yeah, all we need now is a powerful enough tranquilizer so they can interact normally with the rest of humanity," Caleb grumbled half-heartily. Zack could just breathe and annoy the hell out of him.

Jim's eyes sparkled a little brighter. "I was thinking of sending a picture of them together to Samuel and John."

Caleb snorted. "They would never believe us. And I'm pretty sure if we introduced Zack to either John or Sammy they'd kill him in ten seconds flat. And speaking of killing someone," He smiled sweetly at the pastor, "Have you seen Deuce?"

Jim's expression suddenly got sour. "Dean is down in the library."

Caleb lifted an eyebrow at the pastor's tone. "Did you and Dean have a 'small divergence of opinions' this morning?"

"You could say that," the pastor snorted. "Lord that boy is stubborn. He reminds me of a Bloodhound. Once he gets a scent trail, he simply does not let up."

Caleb shot the pastor an amused look. All he could think was pot meet kettle. "Be thankful Deuce has a gentle, affectionate temperament to counter-balance the tenaciously strong hunting instinct and willful nature. He worries about you." I didn't add even more since we'd almost lost Jim a few months back.

"Well, he's not the only one that worries," Jim grumbled. "He's black and blue from head to foot this morning."

"I'll corner Deuce and check him out. I'll hog-tie him if I have to," Caleb promised as he grabbed his coffee and stood up. He had plans to do it anyway since he caught Dean favoring his side the other night.

The pastor sighed, "While your down there see if you can convince him to call his brother."

--888--

He found Dean in the library sitting at a desk studying an ancient map. His hunter's journal was open next to him.

Dean looked Caleb up and down and raised an eyebrow. "I see someone is wearing his teddy-bear this morning."

Caleb's only response was the universal one-fingered one.

It figured.

Deuce would spot the .45's bulge first thing.

And hell yes, after nearly getting his brain fried by Nate, he was feeling a little insecure. Getting his ass kicked tended to make him irritable. There were precious few people he trusted enough to watch his back and go unarmed around. Jim may trust Mujib implicitly, but Jim had trusted Griffin Porter once too at the near expense of Deuce's life. A lesson Caleb never forgot. Brotherhood ring or not, his trust was not a thing Caleb gave away easily.

Anyone that had a problem with that could go fuck themselves.

Caleb walked in, sat down in the chair across from Dean, and causally put his feet up on the desk. "I'm only wearing the belly-band, Asshole, because you cut me out of my favorite shoulder rig. It was custom made too."

Only idiots and amateurs didn't use a holster of some kind. The last thing you wanted when you needed a fast draw was the guns sights to get caught. He hated belly band holsters with a passion. Being a left-handed shooter was a pain in the ass. It made replacing equipment difficult.

"You'd think after the number of times you've been cut out of the damned thing you'd carry a couple spare shoulder rigs with you," Dean replied lifting an eyebrow.

"Thank you Corporal Winchester. As always, I'm enlightened by your insights and opinions."

Dean smirked. "As Dad would say, Anytime, Smartass."

He took this opportunity to study his friend. Jim wasn't kidding. Dean was exploring new and unknown shades of violet everywhere. It had some internal alarm bell of Caleb's going off. This amount of bruising wasn't normal. He'd have to ask Mujib if this could be a possible side effect of the Muninn.

If not he and Deuce were on a plane headed back to the States and Mac tonight.

Caleb cleared his throat. "So Jim…"

Dean's eyes suddenly became green, icy, glaciers. The room suddenly became charged up like the winds right before a thunderstorm. Oh boy, their jade dragon was in a stormy mood this morning. Caleb vaguely wondered if there was a nice, heavy shield around here to hide behind. "If Jim sent you down here to sweet-talk me in to calling Sammy, you can forget it."

"He's still your brother, Deuce. Sammy called because he was worried about you."

Dean snorted, "Yeah right. More like pissed off and wanting to yell at me for interrupting normal."

"Maybe," Caleb acknowledged. Dean knew Sammy better than anyone. He shrugged. "The problem is we both know Sammy is never going to be the person he wants himself to be. The Runt can pretend and take it out on us all he wants. It's not going change a damned thing."

Dean pinched the bridge of his nose. The kid really looked exhausted. The idea of jumping on that plane and heading home to Mac was appealing to Caleb more and more. "I know. That leaves Sammy and me right back at our wonderful Mexican stand-off. Sammy refuses to understand I will not be blackmailed to tailor my life to fit his delusions of normal. I can't do it. Not even for him. And he won't back down from demanding it."

"I know." Caleb stated quietly.

A set of troubled, murky green-eyes met his. "Despite what Jim thinks, I am not up to putting on the boots to wade through my family's emotional shit this morning. I am just too damned tired."

"You okay?" Caleb narrowed his eyes and scanned his friend again. "Don't shit me either. I saw you favoring your side."

"Sure. Watching a bedroom burn around always brings out such agreeable memories," Dean replied bitterly.

He didn't even have to ask why Deuce was so exhausted or if nightmares came with that particular package. Caleb glared. He wasn't letting Deuce change the topic. "Be straight with me here. I need to know if you're not a hundred percent."

Dean rolled his eyes. "I'm fine. I tweaked something lifting Jim out of bed a few months back." He shot Caleb a humorless grin. "Somehow, I keep getting thrown through walls and flaring the damned thing up."

"Then stop using your head as a battering ram, Dumbass" Caleb grumbled. "Use something other than that super dense Winchester skull. Give those poor walls a chance to fight back.

"I so feel the love, Damien." It was Dean's turn to suddenly sigh. "I really want this whole normal thing to work for Sammy. It's another reason why I can't call my brother right now."

"I know," Caleb replied softly.

The biggest gulf was Sammy seemed to believe he could pretend the dark away by simply willing it away. Ignore it long enough and the world will become this normal, safe, wonderful place. Sammy was never going to be part of that world. On some level the kid knew it too. That world had been taken from him the moment his mother had been murdered over his crib. Deuce and he had accepted the reality a long time ago. Sammy didn't. Sammy fought it. No amount of anger, self-loathing, or plain old Winchester stubbornness was going to change that fact, either.

"So what are you doing down here besides…" Caleb tapped Dean's journal with his foot, "hiding your appalling spelling skills and making future generations of Scholars heads explode." Deuce, took a page out of DaVincci's book, literally, and wrote his hunters journal in his own secret code.

"I followed a hunch, called Bobby, and asked him what he knew about the death order Julian Smith issued."

"Let me guess," Caleb muttered. "Nate?"

Dean nodded. "The black tinted band kind of gave it away, huh?"

"A little, "Caleb replied dryly. "So what did our favorite troll have to say about Nate?"

"Besides, '_KILL his ass_'?" Dean replied dryly.

"Ah, great minds," Caleb muttered nonchalantly.

"Bobby told me Julian passed a death order for Nate but never publicly named a Gungnir or summoned The Wild Hunt."

The Wild Hunt was the Brotherhood equal of a 'kill on sight order'. The Wild Hunt could only be summoned by a Guardian. It called upon all that wore the ring and didn't end until the death sentence was carried out.

That meant Julian didn't have the balls or the will to see the death sentence through or…

Caleb narrowed his eyes. "Someone petitioned Julian for the Right of Vidar."

To petition the Guardian for the Right of Vidar was to petition for the right to be named Gungnir or executioner. If the Guardian granted the boon it became the petitioner's sole responsibility to carry out the order and no other members of the Brotherhood could, by law, interfere. It was usually a right only granted to close friends and family members.

Dean nodded.

"Jim. Jim went to Julian and demanded Vidar," Caleb finished grimly. "That complicates things."

"For you maybe," Dean replied icily. The tone made the hair on the back of Caleb's neck stand up. "I have no problem claiming self defense and toasting his ass." It was moments like this Caleb secretly hoped that Dean didn't gain too many powers when he became Guardian. He could be cold-blooded and scary enough without them.

"What are the odds Jim would actually step back and allow us to be as ruthless as we need to be?"

A sarcastic grin was Dean's only response.

Caleb ran a tired hand over his eyes and sighed. "Yeah, that's about what I thought. Jim's Eagle Scout shit can get old."

"It's who Jim is. You're never going to change him. You merely need to adapt and flow around him." Dean gave him a knowing look. "I get it Damien. You're first priority has to be protecting the Guardians."

Fuck.

He was starting to truly comprehend why John Winchester drank sometimes.

Who the hell are you supposed to choose when you have two stubborn, head-strong, self-sacrificing, idiots to protect? Present or Future?

What a hell of a choice.

Wait…

Caleb blinked.

Did Deuce say Guardians?

Dean must of have read the confusion on his face. "I thought… I mean… I thought you saw it. In the right light…" Then a look of doubt crossed Deuce's face. "Maybe I'm wrong."

"Wrong about what?"

"Eureka!" Mujib's gleeful voice suddenly rang out from the lab. Both their head snapped towards the library doors. The doctor stuck his head in and announced, "We found something."

"Deuce," Caleb growled in his friend's ear as he followed him to the door, "This conversation is not over."

"What do you know? Throw enough darts at a wall," Jim replied from the top of the stairs. As the pastor made his way down toward them Mujib started dancing around them singing George Thoorgood's "Shake Your Money Maker."

"I'm just thankful you have pants on this time." Jim rolled his eyes as Mujib shook his booty. "I still have nightmares."

Mujib stopped and shot the pastor a pleased look. "I'm only taking this abuse from you because I know it's professional jealously. It is okay to admit you are in wonder of my brilliance."

"Oh, little doubt, old friend," Jim retorted, "You make me wonder at times. What did you find?"

"Follow me," Mujib announced as he gestured for them to follow him in to the lab. The Arab doctor handed Jim a file. "First off, all the bodies we found had excellent teeth."

"Signs of a well balanced diet," the pastor informed him and Dean. Jim flipped open the file. "Poor diets that are starch heavy promote premature tooth decay."

"The better the diet the better the teeth and bones," Mujib smiled happily. "Very good. I knew I taught you something."

Jim looked up from the file and raised an eyebrow. "You mean besides how to get hopelessly lost in the desert looking for looters?"

"We were NOT lost. Allah led us to where we needed to go," Mujib retorted.

"We got captured," Jim fired back.

"Tomato, Tomahto," The doctor said causally as he walked over to a lab table with a skeleton on it. Mujib picked up a blade and handed it to Caleb. "You may find this fascinating."

Caleb studied the distinct pattern on steel blade. He did a double take. "Damascus steel. I studied about this stuff in school. It could slice through lesser European steel like butter. European blacksmiths never could find the secret to reproducing it."

Mujib nodded. The Arab doctor flipped the blade so Caleb could study the handle. On the handle was the distinct mark of three intertwining circles. "The interesting thing is the evidence does not point to these blades being captured war booty."

"Interesting," Jim muttered. "Anything else?"

"Zack figured out what was blocking our ground penetrating radar," Mujib purred happily. He pointed to the computer monitor.

Zack sat up a little straighter when Jim turned his eyes in the kid's direction. Caleb snickered. If Zack had been wearing a tie he would have nervously straightened. The young research assistant cleared his throat. "I recognized the EMT frequency that was blocking our probes."

"And?" Jim prompted.

"The EMT field….," Zack yanked nervously at his collar. "The structure is giving off the same EMT frequency as our rings."

It was Caleb's turn to raise an eyebrow, "Are you saying they used the silver as a building material?"

Mujib nodded. "They used a form of construction very similar to what the ancient Greeks used at the Parthenon."

"They used iron pegs at the stone joints and then poured the silver in to protect the iron from rusting?" Caleb guessed. He'd studied the Greek Parthenon in school. It was still considered a marvel of classical architecture. Though the Greeks had used lead at the joints. It was one reason some of their buildings were still standing after thousands of years.

Jim was silent for a long time. "That's a lot of wealth, and labor they put in to a tomb."

"Put your Hunter's hats on," Dean stated. "Think of the position of this structure in comparison to the location of the ancient roadways through this region. This wasn't a tomb. What we found was a massacre site." There was no doubt in Deuce's voice. For a moment, just a moment, Caleb swore Dean's eyes turned from jade green to sapphire blue.

Jim nodded. "It would tie in to the level of violence inflected on these men."

"It would also support the evidence I found," Mujib added softly. "None of these men were knights. They don't carry the indicators of the training in their bones. The grueling training a knight under went in that time period leaves distinct signs."

"No evidence of knight's training. These were the Scholar's men. It was either a desperate last stand," Dean muttered thinking out loud.

"Or these men acted as rear guard to cover escape." Jim finished the thought.

An uncanny far-away look entered Dean's eyes. "Whoever killed these men wanted something and they were willing to slaughter and torture every one of these people to find it."

Jim glanced over at Mujib. "Did you find evidence of any of these men being part of the Triad?"

Mujib shook his head. "None. No rings found were marked as such." The Arab doctor looked over them and read their confused looks. "In ancient times all three of the Triads member's rings were marked. The Guardian's ring was marked with spiral or the five-pointed star of protection, the cross or sword for the Knight and the Eye of Providence or the All-Seeing-Eye for the scholar."

"The practice of marking the Knights and Scholars rings came to an end during the Burning Times." Jim added thoughtfully, "It makes sense. If the Guardian had been there this building wouldn't have been taken."

I didn't want to ask how Jim knew this fact.

I had a feeling, even if I had asked, the Guardian wouldn't have told me anyway.

"I did find one unusual thing," Zack's voice suddenly broke in. "There's iron pegs rammed in between the stones of the ceiling and wall on one side of the room. It appears to be a random pattern. The odd thing is the angle the pegs were crammed in to the joints is very strange." Zack held up an image.

"Let me see," Caleb ordered. Sometimes being able to switch thinking from two to three dimensions and back again had its advantages. I was following a hunch this was some type of message. Looking at the angle of entry of the iron pegs reminded me of the few times I'd seen Mac fling things with his mind. "Zack can you shift this image in to two dimensions?"

The image specialist nodded and hit a few keys.

An image appeared.

He looked over at his best friend. "You recognize that, Deuce?"

"Oh, yeah," Dean nodded. "Sammy had to look for him every night at bedtime."

The pegs were laid out in the pattern of the star constellation Draco the Dragon.

What the hell did it mean?

"Excellent work, Zackery," Jim stated with a nod of his head.

Zack puffed up proudly and smiled.

That's when I saw it.

John Winchester once told me that telepaths could be humanly blind. He was right. I missed it. It was Zack's smile and how his face lit up. It was like getting an unexpected flash of John in Dean's face.

Zack had Jim's smile.

Deuce had fucking seen it from the very beginning.

Everything suddenly made an incredible amount of sense.

From Dean's remark about Guardians to him approaching me about the recommendation for Gungnir.

Growing up Jim had always told Sammy stories about how the future Guardian was hidden and would be called to step forward to claim his place when he was needed. Dean had apparently taken those stories literally. With him becoming the Knight and Sammy the Scholar. Deuce had waited, prepared to accept the new Guardian's authority, and taken it on faith that Jim had some role in mind for him in the future. Then they had come here and been introduced to Zack, Jim's son, and Deuce had come to his own conclusions.

Son of a bitch.

"You think there's any connection that Merlin's fountain in the garden has a large dragon or serpent?" Dean suddenly asked.

Every head in the room snapped in Dean's direction.

Deuce shrugged. "What? It's just a thought."

Somehow it made an incredible amount of sense. This place had been a Brotherhood strong hold for centuries. It was distance away from the other site for it to be a safe place. It was a perfect location to either flee or leave a message for any survivors. Hide it in plain sight.

I looked at Jim. "I think we need to check out that fountain."

The Guardian nodded. "Agreed."

As we walked towards the door, I watched Jim and Zack interact.

That's when I realized that Deuce was wrong about one thing.

Jim wasn't that good of an actor. He didn't have an inkling Zack was his son. And I was almost positive Zack didn't know either.

My life had suddenly gotten much more complicated.

I _HATED _complicated.


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's Notes:**

It's been a LONG time between updates. I know it. And don't worry I've heard about it too. Right Rid?

All I can do is apologize and say there was a VERY good reason for it. My Beta and I have been scratching around for a MAJOR plot point in this story trying to be original. We're not MD's and it took us some time and research.

**Decanus-** Dean's name in Latin.

I'm tagging a language warning on this chapter. There are a few nasty words in here.

* * *

The fountain turned out to be nothing but a pit of frustration.

With Zack's tweaking and ground penetrating radar we could see underneath the dragon fountain and the entrance to something.

The problem?

We still had NO idea what the hell it was or how to access it.

That's how I ended up glaring at the lab computer screen cursing a blue streak that would make my veteran Marine mentor proud. I'm a competitive bastard. I'm a damned fine architect. I know it. I hate to lose and Merlin's design was kicking my ass.

It pissed me off.

Fuck the Sorcerer of Camelot.

It was time to go for the explosives and to play a little 'Open-Says-Me' with that fountain.

A sudden warning itch between my shoulder blades caused me to look up from the screen to a set of blue eyes studying me.

I glared at Zack.

I wasn't in the mood to be nice or even mildly polite. I was still mad at Deuce for not cluing me in about his suspicions Zack was Jim's son. I was honest enough to know the blue-haired image specialist was probably getting the blunt of that displeasure too. "Yes?"

Something about Zack bugged me. I couldn't put my finger on why. Jealousy at the fact Deuce finally found a friend his own age? No. Yes. How the fuck should I know? Zack just set off this low grade buzz of warning. It made my skin prickle. He gave me a headache.

Zack licked his lips. Then he shot a nervous glance over his shoulder. "Dean made me promise not to tell the Guardian. He doesn't want Jim to worry."

"Promise not to tell Jim what?" I was suddenly feeling very cold.

Zack ran a hand over his face and looked at the door again. "Dean has a scrape that's still bleeding from your throw down with Nate. Dude, I've caught him changing the bandage twice."

My earlier annoyance with Zack suddenly evaporated. And I did a quick mental inventory of the injuries I had seen when I had helped Dean get dressed earlier. Nothing but some bruising and some minor cuts and scrapes as far as I could see. "Did Deuce forget to mention he needs stitches again?"

"No." Zack shook his head. "It's just a scratch on his arm. You wouldn't think anything of it glancing at it. It just hasn't stopped bleeding yet." Then he looked at the doorway again like he worried Dean could walk in at any moment. Who knew? Zack could be sneaky. There might be something that didn't annoy me about the boy. "But you didn't hear it from me, Dude."

I smiled. It wasn't nice. "You've got a minute to get clear."

Zack grinned back and grabbed his Mountain Dew on the lab table. "Don't have to warn me twice. I'm getting out of the fall out zone." Then the younger hunter bolted up the cellar stairs.

I silently counted to ten.

If I hadn't been so worried about Dean I probably would have marched in and throttled him on the spot. Deuce was always pulling this shit. The problem was I WAS worried. Dean had felt off for a while. Add that in with the flu Deuce couldn't seem to shake, the favoring his side, the bruising. It was all pointing to something bad.

Very bad.

I stood up, took a deep breath to center myself, and then roared.

"Deuce!"

* * *

"This is your fault."

I grunted and shrugged at my best friend who sat on the hospital bed. The allegation rolled off my back like water off a duck's. I wasn't going to deny it. It was true and sometimes it was best to let Dean rant.

It made life simpler.

Stealing a glance at the clock and wondering where the hell the doctor was with those test results made me wonder if 'simple' was a word we were going to be associating with life ever again.

Dean hugged his knees to this chest. He hymned a tune I didn't recognize under his breath. It was odd. It sounded almost medieval. The melody for some reason made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Deuce gave his IV and the bag of blood dripping in to his arm a disgusted look. "I'm fine." I wondered who Deuce was trying to convince us or himself.

Jim glanced up from the book he was reading. He sent Dean a scathing look that had sent John Winchester scrambling for cover more than once. "Your red blood count is dangerously low. That's hardly fine."

When we arrived the doctors had taken one look at the red cell count and tried to figure out how Dean could still be on his feet. That's why the easy bruising was happening. It was also why his scratch wasn't clotting. Deuce simply didn't have the red blood cells to do the job.

The question we were sitting around waiting for the doctors to answer was why?

Did the Muninn do this or did the Muninn sense something that was already there?

It was a moot point about piling us all on to a plane back to the States anyway. It was my first instinct. Get home. Go to ground. Find Mac. But as low as Deuce's blood count was he wasn't physically fit to fly.

Dean opened his mouth to say something.

Jim intercepted by jerking his hand up. It was a signaled take cover because old Astorim was about to toast someone. "Not one more word Dean Matthew. You're staying put. I could give a flying dozen FIGS about how John Winchester would handle the situation. I'm here. He's not. Is that VERY clear young man?"

That pretty much summed up Dean's entire life, I thought bitterly.

Sometimes that was the wonderful thing about Jim, other times it was the most annoying. Once the Guardian had his mind set, fighting with him was like standing on the beach yelling at the tide. Trust me. I've tried it. Jim wouldn't be turned back. Fighting with him didn't do you any good.

While I was at it, I sent a few nasty thoughts John's way about him not picking up his fucking phone.

I maliciously hoped I managed to give him a head-splitting migraine too.

The Bastard.

Petty? Me?

Nah.

An infuriated green gaze settled on me. I was Dean's easiest target and someone was apparently getting very restless. "Assume a virtue if you have it not."

I shot Deuce an amused smile. "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful."

"Boys," Jim sighed.

"Thou art like the toad, ugly and venomous." Dean fired back.

"Oh that stung, Deuce." It's sad. Deuce and I have insult theme weeks and we have the nerve to call Sammy 'geek'. "Thou mammering tardy-gaited bum-bailey."

Mujib looked up from the book he was studying. His dark eyes danced with amusement at the Shakespeare. "Oh, that was a good one."

"Please don't encourage them." Jim pinched his nose tiredly. "I barely made it through Haiku week."

That's when Zack walked in to the hospital room carrying some beverages. He shot everyone a concerned look. "I brought tea." He announced as he handed each of us a paper cup.

I took the offered cup.

Hospitality customs and all that crap.

People in this part of the world didn't appreciate that coffee wasn't just a dessert but a lifestyle. They saw coffee as an after dinner treat and not as a beverage of choice. Tea was their first choice. It was a custom I did not embrace. Jim and Mujib on the other hand took a big sip with appreciative smiles. I'd play nice and ditch the tea later.

Dean sighed, hugged his knees closer and laid his head on top of them. Then he started hymning that strange melody again.

"You okay over there, Deuce?"

"Peachy," Dean grumbled not bothering to lift his head. "I feel like shit. Thanks for asking."

Zack shot Dean a look of pity. "I got Mountain Dew, Man. You want some?"

"Oh, God no," Dean moaned.

I knew that sound.

I jumped to my feet. I grabbed the basin right next to the bed. I stuck it under Deuce's nose just in time as what little in his stomach came back up. Blood transfusions always made Dean nauseous. The only bright spot was at least this time he was coherent for the transfusion.

"You want me to go find something to settle your stomach?" I asked softly.

Deuce shook his head. Green eye filled with misery met mine. "No. I want you to hold still so I can aim for your boots."

"Your ability to think of others first never ceases to amaze me," I replied sarcastically.

"You always want me to share, Damien."

I rolled my eyes. "I'm going to go look for your doctor."

It was Deuce's turn to snort. "You're ditching me to find coffee in teetotaling hell. You better bring me some back. While you're at it, bring me back a red-head and two blondes too."

Only Deuce would be demanding coffee at a time like this.

"Ah, I can see those rising blood levels are finally hitting your brain."

"Tell me about it," Deuce groused. "My caffeine levels are tanking as we speak. I don't think my system will be able to cope."

I patted him on the shoulder and handed the basin to Jim. "I'll see what I can do."

As I walked out of the room I caught sight of Sal out of the corner of my eye. He nodded to me in acknowledgement as I passed. Seeing the big burly Jewish weapons master standing guard made me feel better. Jim wasn't taking any chances. I didn't know Sal personally but he was one name John gave me as an emergency contact just in case. Muscle is muscle. It's like extra ammo in a shoot-out. You can never have too much.

Sal shook his head as I happily dumped Zack's tea down the nearest water fountain.

There was one thing about this part of the world I loved.

Their beverage of choice might suck but no one gave me any second glances as I strolled down the halls looking for Deuce's doctor.

Despite how many people think 'Creole' and 'Cajun' is the same thing. It's not. My mother's family was originally from Haiti. That heritage was reflected in the faith my grandmother practiced and my olive skin color. In some parts of the States you take me out of a designer suit and put me behind the wheel of an expensive car and I went from Caleb Reaves respected architect and CEO to 'probable cause'.

John got it right with Sammy. One thing I couldn't fault his parenting style for. Sammy had traveled so much and seen so many different kinds of people in his life he never noticed. It was a blessing and a curse. Sam never saw skin color, only people, but he never saw how some people got treated differently because of their skin color either.

Deuce saw it.

He always had. The hypocrisy made Dean mutiny against 'normal'. It also caused him to be a little too wise and a little too jaded for his years. I was the reason for more than one beat-each-others-head-in fight between brothers about Sam's envy for 'normal' through the years.

I honestly wondered if it was a chasm the brothers were ever going to be able to bridge.

I had just spotted Dean's doctor and was about to turn a corner to follow him when my ring started to vibrate.

I stared down at the ring on my finger. A cold shot of horror ran up my back.

Nate!

I spun on my heel and bolted down the hall towards Deuce's room.

Sal's body was the first sight that greeted me. I knelt down and checked for a pulse. I knew it was a wasted effort. Sal didn't have any visible weapon wounds but the dead staring eyes and the blood leaking from the nose and ears told me everything I needed to know.

Damn it!

I closed his eyes as a final gesture of respect to a fellow Hunter.

I didn't even bother to draw my gun as I headed in Dean's room. I didn't worry about trying to cloak my presence either. Nate had already demonstrated it was a useless waste of energy. Nate knew I was here and he knew I was coming. Besides you don't want bullets flying around near civilians unless you can possibly avoid it. Bullets traveled through plaster and bounced off concrete walls too damned easy. The last thing you want to do is kill someone innocent who happened to be unlucky enough to be in the crossfire.

I did a dive roll in to the room.

I landed on my feet in a crouching position and took stock of the scene in front of me.

Jim and Mujib were both on the ground not moving but they were breathing. Kudos. Zack was trying to hold down a struggling Deuce. Dean's IV was on the ground dripping. Nate was calmly standing there studying my entrance.

"Damien run!" Dean shouted at me.

Nate shot me a look like he tasted me and loved what danced across his tongue. "Such power. John Winchester has trained you well, Hound."

"Let Dean go, Zack," I ordered. My gun wouldn't work against Nate but I had no problem putting a bullet between Zack's eyes.

Nate tilted his head. "Would you honestly kill another member of Brotherhood that coldly?"

"Read my mind, Asshole and find out." Then I gestured down at Jim and Mujib. "Did you kill them too?"

"No," Nate replied amused. "Zack merely drugged them. I got what I came here for. I plan to leave them for Janfar."

Suddenly that warning tickle I always got from Zack made sense. "You mind fucked Zack royally didn't you? Mind wiped him and sent him in as a sleeper to kill Jim. Everything else was a ruse to cover your real plans."

"Yes." Nate's lips tipped upward. I felt myself get lifted off my feet and pinned against a wall. "Guardian must kill Guardian for the Brotherhood to truly die. I planned for James' return for a very long time."

It seems that Deuce wasn't the only one that had thought Zack was the next Guardian and Jim had hidden him away here for safety.

Gee, sometimes life royally fucked the best laid plans.

Nate stared at me. It was more the gaze a leopard would give you from behind the bars of the zoo. A look that said he didn't even see you as human just a threat to deal with or something to snack on.

"But my net caught something much more interesting, however. Didn't it Decanus?" He gave Dean a look a man dying of thirst might give a desert spring. Any sane person would have run screaming in the other direction. With a quick twitch of Nate's head Zack let go and Dean levitated off the bed. "The first true Munnin rider in over three hundred years."

"Let me go, "Deuce growled. "And I'll show you how interesting I can be."

"Temper, temper," Nate mocked. "I have need of your services."

"I'm only helping send you straight to hell." Then Dean looked Nate straight in the eye and gave him an icy smile. Then he said the formal words, "The Right of Vidar no longer protects you Natas St. Clair. Before the Brotherhood and by the power of the Triad, as a wearer of the silver band, I declare and claim the right of self defense. In other words, Asshole, I'm now free to kill your sorry ass anyway I see fit."

Nate threw his head back and laughed. "Oh, Dean you truly are a delight. I understand why James holds you in such high regard. A long awaited breath of fresh air the Brotherhood so desperately needs. For that alone I'm going to let the young Knight live. But now I need you both to sleep."

I felt the over-powering mental command slice through my shields and drag me down towards unconsciousness.

Oh yeah, we were so screwed.


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Notes:**

Just a few historical notes:

**Pendragon**- I worked off historical fact. In this story it's a title and not a last name. I'm aware the Arthurian legends claim Pendragon as Arthur's last name. The first certified historical documentation of the Pendragon title was recorded by Roman historians.

I make no excuse.

The pink panties line from the last episode was just too good not to write-in.

* * *

Dean Winchester dreamed.

He stood in the middle of a vast apple orchard. The full moon hung in the sky overhead. A slight sent of apple blossoms danced on the breeze. In the distance he heard the sound of the sea sing as it crashed on the island shore. Through the grove of trees he could see a barge bob up and down on a mirrored lake surface. On the barge, standing guard was a cloaked figure in red.

An armed man stood before him.

He was a tall man. A helmet hid his face. A water blue cloak fell from heel to toe. At his throat was a silver broach with three interlocking circles. The broach glowed softly reflecting the fire lit next to him. Attached at one hip was a simple sword, a practical killing weapon, on the other a hunter's dagger. Worn on his finger was a large silver ring with an intricate dragon design.

"Greetings Pendragon," in this dream world Dean greeted the man before him formally. He used the Brotherhood's ancient title. Something in his bones told Dean this man was not a merely a Guardian but a Pendragon an ancient War Lord of the Brotherhood. There hadn't been a Pendragon in over five hundred years.

Dean wondered briefly if he should bow or something.

Bobby's lessons in the old ways didn't quite cover situations like this.

"We do not bow to each other, Dean Winchester," The amused response came from under that war helm. "It is not our way. We are the people of the silver band. In remembrance of the Round Table, we stand shoulder to shoulder in the three interlocking circles always as equals."

"Duty, Knowledge and Sacrifice," Dean finished softly.

The Pendragon nodded and Dean saw under the helmet. There were no eyes. Nothing but a vast star filled sky. "I greet thee Dean Winchester in the name of Avalon."

Dean licked his lips.

Exactly how did he get here?

The last thing he remembered was Nate and his hospital room.

Jim!

"Jim Murphy still lives. You dream and dance between worlds right now Munnin Rider." The figure before him answered. The voice was deep, abrupt and used to command. He stepped forward and held out an ankh shaped staff. The fire next to him flared. "Take it. You must return the Staff of Isis to the waters of which it was forged. That is the only place where its power will be safe. Where we failed, you must succeed."

"Where?" Dean asked as he held out his hands for the staff.

"The first source of the Nile River," the Pendragon replied. "Return the staff to She-Who-Rises-From-The-Waters."

"How will I find this place?" Dean softly asked.

"Follow the Nile and like Avalon it will find you," the Pendragon responded secretively.

Their hands met and Dean suddenly felt chilled to the bone. Push met pull. Life merged with the tide of death and the world spun. As the staff left the Pendragon's grip it fell through Dean's hands to the ground. The fire died and Dean was suddenly groping around the ground in the dark. In the dim moonlight Dean's hands found nothing.

"Find the staff," the Pendragon softly commanded. "No one else can. Release our brother and allow him to finally rest."

"Where?" Dean called as he continued to search the darkness. "I don't know where to look."

He was suddenly spiraling amongst the stars of the constellation Orion.

He burned as he spiraled back to Earth.

His eyes snapped open.

Dean looked in to Caleb's very concerned gold eyes.

"Damien?"

* * *

He woke up.

Surprise!

That was always a great start to any morning.

Caleb flinched at the glare of lights high overhead as he got up off of the cold, stone floor. He quickly scanned for threats. His surroundings reminded Caleb of all the Greek stories of the underworld. They were in some sort of underground catacomb. All around them were sealed tombs carved into the wall in tall vertical lines. On the tombs were a strange script chiseled on the outside of each individual vault. The most noticeable features were the two interlocking circles with the silver ring embedded in the middle to create the third one. The three circles created a pattern Caleb knew very well.

Mujib's people by legend traced their roots back to the three Saracen Knights of the Round Table Palamedes, Safir, and Segwarides. Due to that, they didn't bury their dead the same way the descendents of the European Brotherhood did. The European branch of the Brotherhood salted and burned their fallen. It was their way. It not only made sure the empty body could never rise again but to return the Hunter to the primal elements, the spiral of creation, that had forged them.

The Brotherhood of the Middle East didn't do that.

Not only was burning a body against religious practices of many of the Hunters in this region. Also coming from the dry desert climates, the amounts of wood needed to burn a body were very rare. Instead their brothers buried their dead and bound their bodies to the graves with very strong magic. These were the people of the Earth: Diverse, stubborn, and enduring.

Caleb fingered the softly glowing silver ring on the tomb in front of him respectfully.

Interesting.

Why the hell did Nate dump him here?

By the size of the place, it looked like generations of the Brotherhood had been buried and bound here.

To Caleb what Nate had done was an appalling desecration.

These Hunters had earned their peace with blood, bone, and steel.

It was the sight of the too still figure out of the corner of his eye that made his guts clench up with icy horror.

He shut down.

Training took over.

Assess. Adapt. Survive.

Emotional breakdowns always came later.

"Deuce!"

Caleb carefully scrambled over. He looked for traps. Dean looked like one of the dead. Now dressed in the clothes he wore to the hospital, his friend was laid out on a carved stone ledge in a near funeral pose. Caleb hesitantly reached out to touch him. He fully expected to feel the cold, stiff feel of death. Instead when his hand made timid contact with Dean he felt the warm give of life.

Oh, thank God.

"Deuce," he once again called gently.

Emerald green eyes snapped open. "Damien?"

Caleb nodded and helped ease his friend up to a sitting position. Dean shivered and this time he noted the unusual warmth radiating from his friend's body. Deuce's eyes were glossy. He was deathly pale and his freckles stood out so sharply it looked like someone had painted them on.

That meant fever.

Okay.

That he could deal with.

Dean did a quick threat assessment. Then he closed his eyes and pinched his nose. "I'm a little confused. Where are we?"

"No clue" Caleb supplied.

Dean's green eyes did another scan of the area. "Jim? Mujib?"

Caleb shook his head. "I don't think they're here. Right before Nate whammied me he mentioned something about leaving Jim and Mujib for 'Janfar'."

"So we've got to assume that Jim is in enemy hands and no rescue is coming," Dean finished for him softly. "We're on our own."

"Fraid so." Caleb carefully helped Dean struggle his feet and caught him as the younger man swayed.

Caleb threw Dean's arm over his shoulder.

He wanted his friend off that stone, death slab.

With Dean's test results still unknown back at the hospital.

Call him superstitious.

Dean's knees buckled and he almost took them both down. A few more feet and Caleb could ease him down gently in what looked like a safe dry corner. "God, I feel like shit. I hate blood transfusions"

"I know, Kiddo," Caleb muttered as he helped Dean down. He took off his over shirt and threw it over Dean. "We seem to be pretty deep underground. I'm going to take a look around and see if I can find a way out of here."

Deuce rubbed the spot between his eyes. The gesture shouted headache. Then he gave Caleb a thoughtful look. "Nate isn't taking any chances you can draw on any of the Knight Hoo Doo by burying you underground."

Caleb lifted an eyebrow. "Hoo Doo? Okay. My brain got fried so I know I'm a little slow. Please explain. The Knight's element is fire."

Dean nodded. He suddenly looked like the kid Caleb so fondly remembered who proudly built his own sawed-off in shop class. "By legend the Knight draws his power from the 'fire of life'. It's the sun. I figured it out sitting at Dad's bedside one day. I noticed the sunnier it got in his hospital room the better his vitals got. Somehow the Sun gives the Knight a boost." Dean shrugged. "I tried a little experiment when Jim was so sick. The moon does seem to have the very same effect with him."

It made a certain amount of sense. It was all about balance. Ying and Yang. Fire and Water. Warmth and Cold. Harm and Healing. The sun and the moon both lit up the darkness in their way. The Guardian's element was water and the moon's power pulled on every body of water on the planet.

Caleb thought about it and filed it away.

He may need the information later.

"My theory kind of blows apart with the Scholar," Dean sighed. "It doesn't work with Mac and rocks." He closed his eyes, and leaned his head up against the stone wall of their prison. He looked miserable. "Damien, if you get an opening. Take it."

Caleb shot his best friend a look. It was his best you've-got-to-be-fucking-kidding-me expression. "I know what you're thinking, Deuce. Stake that bitch down right there and burn her."

"I mean it." Dean's earnest green eyes met his. "As sick as I am, I'll only slow you down. If Nate gives you an opening to escape take it. Don't worry about me."

"I will never leave a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of the enemy" Caleb intoned matter-of-fact as he put his hands on his hips. Winchesters weren't the only ones that could be stubborn.

Dean threw his hands up in exasperation. "God, you are such a stubborn asshole. What I'm proposing is our most rational course of action."

"I'm an artist," Caleb countered. "I never claimed to be logical."

Dean cross his arms over his chest and glared back. "You're only an artist when you want to be pigheaded and piss me off."

"I learned from the best," Caleb replied smoothly. "Or do you remember the time you greeted the girl Sam brought home in drag? What was her name? Amy? Sammy looked like he was going to blow a gasket he was so purple. Especially after the kid sat us all down the night before and gave us the 'try to act normal' lecture."

Dean smirked. "Amy complimented me on my taste in shoes. I WAS going to the Rocky Horror Picture Show that night. Besides with that sermon Sammy double-dogged dared me. He really should have known better than to challenge me. I have_ no_ shame."

"Yes," Caleb sighed dramatically. "Who knew Bobby could do the Time Warp? I still can't look at a pair of pink panties without thinking of your outfit and throwing up in my mouth a little."

"My work for future generations is done."

"Alright Dr. Frank-N-Furter," Caleb grumbled. It was a testament to how shitty Deuce was feeling when Caleb laid his hand on the side of his friend's face to take his temperature again and Dean didn't give him hell for it. Yeah, Deuce was definitely running a low grade fever. "I'm going to take a look around. Stay put."

"Here take this with you, Theseus." Dean reached in to his jacket pocket, pulled out a ball of string and tossed it to him. "So you don't get lost. And don't fucking touch anything."

"Afraid I'm going to get lost and pick a fight with a Minotaur, Deana?" Caleb shook his head amused as he threw the string ball from one hand to the other.

"I know you. You could pick a fight with Gandhi," Dean grumbled back tiredly. "And the last time we were in a set of old ruins, your curiosity got the best of you, and you pulled a lever. Remember? I fell in to a pit trap and almost ended getting eaten by a Feathered Serpent."

"Details, details," Caleb replied. He patted his friend on the shoulder. "I promise. I'll be careful, Mother."

"I meant what I said about not touching anything, Damien," Dean called back.

Half an hour later Caleb was cursing Nate and intelligent bad guys in general.

Without a rope or a latter to climb out of there they were pretty much screwed. The walls were too steep to find a hand hold. The large slab of rock over what looked like the entrance would be impossible to move too.

Damn it.

The only positive factor was there was fresh air drifting in from somewhere. They weren't going to suffocate.

Caleb made his way back to Dean. He bit his tongue and counted to ten when he saw one of the overhead lights down and dismantled in pieces at Dean's feet. Dean's eyes were close and his head was on his knees.

What part of scrapes and bruises right now could be fatal didn't Deuce understand?

God damned stubborn idiot.

Caleb tapped his friend on the shoulder. "Hey." The fact Dean didn't lift his head or see him coming concerned him.

The younger hunter jumped and his head snapped up. "I checked. No wire for rope. You find anything?"

"We're fucked."

Dean grinned wryly. "That good, huh?"

Caleb plunked down next to Dean. "I found a path that heads down deeper. I think we ought to follow it."

Dean lifted a questioning eyebrow.

"The Brotherhood is pretty consistent about placing their burial sites or scattering ashes by sources of water," Caleb informed him. "Going down deeper might get us an underground spring and drinking water." And Dean with his fever needed fluids and soon. "You up for it?"

"Drinking water has to be our first priority," Dean sighed and rubbed his head again. He held out his hand and Caleb helped him up.

Caleb grunted as he took his friend's weight and they slowly made their way down the steep path. "I was thinking after this little adventure and getting you all fixed up- Everest."

Dean stiffened, stopped and glowered at him. "Birds don't even fly over that chunk of rock because it's too tall. Only humans are stupid enough not to leave it the fuck alone."

"Think of the majestic views," Caleb huffed as he caught Dean as he steadied both of them on the decent down the steep path.

"Think of the altitude sickness and avalanches," Dean fired back.

"Ah Deuce, think of it as an adventure and an opportunity to Zen out and become one with the mountain."

"You becoming 'one with the mountain' is exactly what I'm concerned about, Dick Head. It's typically followed by a large splat and someone scraping up what's left of you with a spatula."

"India and Taj it is then," Caleb replied happily as he took a little more of Dean's weight on his shoulders.

"I'm not getting on another fucking plane unless it's flying home," Dean insisted. "And I have had enough of tombs."

"Did you know India is the birth place of the Kama Sutra?" Caleb informed him.

"Okay," Dean mumbled. "This argument might convince me to climb on a plane. Give me the intestinal fortitude I need to push through a huge hoard of obnoxious tourists, listen to you ramble on with no interest about the sappy love story that built The Taj, and glaze upon with no wonder at a marble crypt." Then Dean pointed at a fork in the path. "Go right, then left. There's a steam."

Caleb didn't question how Deuce knew that and positioned them down the various paths the younger hunter indicated. Deuce had always had a sixth sense about where to find water. That gift had saved their lives more than once.

They continued to go deeper underground for quite a distance before they entered the chamber.

"Oh wow," Dean muttered as he looked around. "I wish I had a camera. Sammy would love this place."

It was like they stepped in to the heart of the earth.

They were surrounded by huge crystals and fluorescent minerals deposits, which glowed in the dark. They cast a soft glow throughout the chamber. At the center was a medium sized spring whose waters collected at a huge silver lined basin on the floor. With the minerals glowing over their heads the basin reflecting the light reminded Caleb of the moon in a star lit sky.

This was hallowed ground.

Caleb could tell by the various offerings and the scent of incense. The offerings had been left here in remembrance and honor for the dead. Placed neatly all around them were small, grief-tied tokens. Brought to this place and left with reverence, love, and respect.

Nate stood by the water basin waiting for them.

Wonderful.

Deuce better have an insane, MacGyvered ace up his sleeve because they were in serious trouble.


	12. Chapter 12

People seek death a lot of ways.

Stupidly. Arrogance.

"Gee look, Damien," Dean fired out snidely. "Nate's been shopping at 'Goons-R-Us'."

Others?

By not knowing when to keep their fucking mouth shut.

"And he's been shopping in the psychic section too." Caleb grumbled as a subtle four-eleven. He shifted some of Dean's weight back to the younger hunter. He needed to be able to launch in to a fighting stance if he had too. With the visible weaponry Zack and the other thugs were wearing, if things went south Caleb knew if it came down to hand-to-hand he didn't have a chance.

"Wonderful." Dean muttered under his breath.

"Now shut up and smile sweetly at the mad man. Or I'm gonna smack you," Caleb replied with fake cheer.

"Welcome." Nate smiled at them. "You don't disappoint. I knew you'd find your way."

"Oh, yeah? Your hospitality sucks," Dean complained loudly.

"Deuce…" Caleb warned. "Rein it in before you get us both killed."

Dean ignored him and continued, "And look at me, invited to the prom without my bucket of pig's blood."

Caleb stared.

Fuck.

Was this part of Dean's plan?

Caleb wanted Nate dead because Nate scared the shit out him. He was dangerous and unstable.

Dean on the other hand?

Deuce was the more calculating of the two of them. By the Brotherhood's rules and code of honor they couldn't kill Nate. That duty was given to another. The only way they could kill him was if it was a clear case of self defense. And Deuce was matter-of-fact enough to make sure it was an obvious case of self-preservation. It made a frightening amount of sense. Dean had already declared the right of self defense. Nate attacked them now, and they killed him. No questions. It would protect Jim and Caleb from any Brotherhood backlashes.

But man…

Pre-meditated self-defense was sub-zero cold even for Deuce.

Who the hell was he kidding?

No it wasn't.

Deuce could be chilling, strategically, psychopathic that way. In his mind, if it was worth fighting and dying for, it was worth fighting dirty for. If you went after what Dean considered one of his. He'd crush you like a cockroach. It was just good business.

Right then Dean's knees buckled. Caleb slid down with him to ease Dean's fall a little.

That's when Caleb felt it.

Dean dropped something in to the back of his boot.

Sneaky.

Yup, looks like MacGyver had pulled a plan out of his ass after all.

For a moment Caleb thought Nate might have caught a whiff of what they were up too when he stepped forward and slowly circled them. That icy feeling around Caleb's shoulders shot right to a heavy ball of dread in the pit of his stomach.

Repeat this mantra…

Shield like hell. Pray. Shield like hell. Pray again.

Nate reached out and caught Dean's chin.

"It's a pity, Dean Winchester." Nate stated wishfully. "Jude would have taken one look at you and wept in joy. You are so bright. Like the full moon on a dark winter night. I can hardly stand to look straight at you. I could drink up your energy all day. Life giving rains and healing waters. Blues, greens, and silvers. Jude was probably the only one of us that could have passably trained you. Goes to show what a miserable failure Missouri is as an Advisor. She hasn't even taught you how to adequately shield yourself."

Dean stiffened. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Nate let go of Dean's chin, threw his head back, and laughed. "Continue to fool yourself. Ying and Yang, life and death, like the push and pull of the moon on the oceans tides. The things Jude could have taught you."

Dean shook his head. Caleb steadied him as the younger hunter almost went tumbling. "I don't know what glue you've been sniffing. I am not a psychic."

"Ah, the Brotherhood's prejudice sprouts again," Nate replied smoothly. "No you are not psychic. You, Decanus, are something completely wonderfully different. The key I needed."

"You are nuts."

"Am I?" Nate stated and stepped back. His words slithered off of Caleb's skin like some evil oily thing. "Is the idea of being psychic that appalling to you? When I'm done, if you survive, you will make a breathtakingly powerful empath."

Dean narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean 'make an empath'? You can't make an empathy. It's impossible. Either you're born with it or not."

Nate smiled. "You'll see. With the healing powers of the staff anything is possible."

"What?" Dean blinked. "Dude, I can't even keep my own head straight. I see every day how Damien struggles to keep from drowning in other people. I'm not that strong. I don't need my brain broke open and scrambled with anyone else's. Thanks, but no thanks."

"He's scared of you." Nate inched in to Caleb's personal space. It made Caleb's skin crawl. "He's your best friend and like all the other Norms frightened of your power."

"Is that all Sal was to you?" Caleb demanded. "A Norm? Something easily deposed of?"

"Of course, "Nate shrugged. "Sacrifices must be made. People like us are the next step forward, Caleb. We are the future. They aren't. The Norms not only can't accept that, they try to hobble us with their morals. Norms are nothing. They hold us back from what we can truly become."

"Sacrifice?" Dean repeated coldly. "Strike three, Nate. Trying to kill Jim pissed me off but by the Right of Vidar, it's by law, between the two of you. I can't interfere. Strike one was attacking Damien. Strike two was mind-wiping Zack. Killing Sal was strike three. When you took that silver ring you took an oath. You swore to use your skills and talents to protect people weaker than yourself. Instead you have betrayed everything that ring on your finger stood for."

Nate studied Dean carefully. "You are no Guardian." Nate's unspoken word was: Yet. "You will not kill me this night, Decanus."

Dean smiled. It was very unpleasant. It was not a smile Caleb ever wanted directed at him. It promised oh-so nasty things to come. "Maybe. There will be other nights."

Oh yeah…

Nate was completely freaking off his rocker.

Caleb laughed humorlessly, because Nate wasn't frightened and he should be.

He really fucking should be.

"Am I crazy Caleb?" Nate whispered softly. "Don't you ever get tired of hiding your whole life behind walls? Never being able to reach out for their sake?"

"Get out of my head," Caleb growled.

"Her name was Rachel." Nate purred evilly. "And you loved her. How wonderful. Holding her in your arms, she was the first person that ever tempted you to simply let go and let your shields drop. Lured you in to even thinking about what love is meant to be for us: gestalt. To become two perfect mirrors reflecting back everything we are at each other."

Caleb grabbed his head. "Stop it."

"Leave him alone!" Dean snarled.

Nate ignored Dean and continued. "But you were too frightened to embrace that weren't you? So you broke her heart and drove her off instead."

"Yes, I ran away. Happy now?" Caleb whispered softly. Then he looked Nate in the eye. He meant every word of the next sentence. "NOW GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"

Nate shot Caleb a look of pity. "Fear not, Hound. After I'm done, people like us will never have to hide again."

Dean narrowed his eyes again. "Oh, really? And how do you propose that?"

Nate waved the question off casually and went back to stand by the pool. "Why with your help, Decanus."

Dean lifted an eyebrow. "Really?"

"It's very simple," Nate informed him as he dipped his hand into the pool of water. "You will show me where the Staff of Isis is hidden or the young Knight is going to suffer for your stubbornness." Nate made a quick flick of his other wrist and Caleb was jerked across the room.

"Deuce don't …"

"Have you ever seen what a little creativity and a car battery can do? I'm told the resulting third degree burns can be horrifying." Nate smiled coldly at Dean. Caleb had seen warmer smiles on serial killers. "I'm sure you can testify the smell of cooked flesh is one someone never quite gets over. Not after what happened to your mother."

Deuce lost all color. His green eyes were huge. Caleb could feel the revulsion that came off his friend in waves. Under that was a choking horror of anyone that saw torture as a tool to make a point. That person didn't have rules. It told them Nate didn't have lines he wouldn't cross.

Dean suddenly looked very young. "You wouldn't."

"It would be a shame." Nate dipped his hand in to the fountain again. "Our young Knight with a little reprogramming would be a fine addition to my cause. On the other hand, sacrifices must be made."

"Fuck you. You are NOT dry cleaning my brain, Asshole," Caleb growled as he fought against the invisible restraints that held him.

"It would be best if you kept quiet, Hound." Nate jerked his head this time and Caleb felt himself being forced face down on to the floor. "Save your friend a lot of pain and tell me what I need to know."

Nate gestured again and Caleb felt his arms and legs suddenly held down by Nate's group of armed goons. One thug pulled out something that glowed red hot. It hadn't made contact yet but Caleb could feel the heat on his back already. It only made Caleb struggle harder.

Dean looked from Nate to Caleb. The younger hunter looked ill. "I don't know. I swear. Just don't hurt him."

Caleb felt something searing hot touch his left shoulder. His flesh made a sickening sizzling sound only seconds before the agony blazed up his nervous system. Caleb screamed. There was no way to bottle it.

It was Nate's turn to smile. "I don't believe you. Now tell me where the Staff of Isis is hidden. Show me what the Muninn has shown you."

* * *

It was the melody that pulled Caleb back to consciousness.

Caleb recognized it.

It was that strange melody Dean had been hymning in his hospital room. Oddly enough it wasn't creepy anymore. Now it seemed more yearning and haunting. Caleb wondered if it was a song Merlin sung to the very first Triad and had been passed down for generations. Merlin had been a bard. He had by legend been trained by the legendary Taliesin himself. Music had been the old magician's first love before destiny had called him to other things. The tune wove an eternal spell of apple blossoms floating in the winds. It sang of family, safety, security, and healing.

It drew you in and called you home.

Deuce really did have a beautiful voice when he wasn't goofing off.

It was clean and pure, like spring water.

Caleb remembered how it always made Sammy jealous.

Some part of him knew he should be hurting. Knew he should be in agony. And the fact his shoulder didn't hurt meant very bad things. It meant third degree burns that wouldn't heal. Caleb knew if the burn was too deep, skin grafts wouldn't work. If the resulting infection didn't kill him, he would lose his left arm. Nate didn't want to kill him. The simple fact was Nate really didn't care if Caleb lived or died. Nate was more aiming to nail his point home to Dean, or possibly Jim, by maiming Caleb permanently.

Oh yeah…

He was really starting to hate Old Nate's guts.

Caleb must have shifted or groaned because the singing stopped and the arms that held Caleb tightened around him. He didn't have the energy to open his eyes, so he dropped his shields and reached out gently for Dean's mind. He needed to know if Deuce was okay.

"Damien?" Dean's consciousness flooded in to his like a tidal wave. There was some odd spark of power to it that Caleb could feel. One inherent command flowed in to Caleb's mind: Live.

Live. Fight. Survive. Fight. Live. Live. Live.

The mantra that screamed inside Caleb's head over and over again wasn't quiet sane.

That scared Caleb.

It made him open his eyes.

His eyes met a set of tear-filled jade ones.

Yup. Deuce really was a big tough psychopath at times.

Looking into his best friends green eyes, he knew how bad it really was.

Caleb might survive but his left arm and shoulder were definitely goners.

To make it even worse Dean's fever had spiked dangerously. Caleb could tell with one look. His eyes were glossy. His face was flushed. His best friend was semi-delusional and not firing on all cylinders. He was positively not lucid.

Dean ran a hand through his hair. Caleb's concern inched up a notch as he noted how hot his friend was. "Don't worry Damien. I'll fix it. I promise. I'll fix it."

The not rational chant in Caleb's head suddenly went to: Fix. Heal. Fix.

This was so not good.

"This, however entertaining, is becoming much too drawn out for my taste." Caleb managed to turn his head ever so slightly and Nate came in to view. A flash of hate speared right through Caleb. In the dim light Nate looked like the monster he really was. "This is getting us nowhere. We're going to have to do this the hard way. Take him."

Caleb grabbed weakly for Dean when he realized who Nate's goons were heading for. "No! You'll kill him." It wasn't enough. Caleb was too weak to fight them and to hold on. The thugs grabbed Dean, forcefully separated them and dragged Dean to his feet. On of the goons caught Dean as he drunkenly stumbled.

"Possibly," Nate shrugged. "Dean does have formidable natural barriers. It may take time and more energy than I wanted to extend, but I and my men will drill through them."

Caleb wanted to throw up.

No. No. No.

This was going to be a psychic gang rape.

No way in hell in his condition would Dean survive the ordeal.

Caleb did the only thing he could do.

He gathered his powers and hurled them at Nate.

He pictured a lightening, fire in its purest, deadliest form.

Nate slapped up his shields. "Impressive, Hound. But not enough."

Nate lashed out at Dean.

Dean grabbed his head and screamed.

The structure rumbled. The crystals over their heads started to glow brighter.

A power sparked.

What the hell?

This new energy didn't fight back. Like water, like the tide, it simply absorbed Nate's attack.

"Hear my call. Come to me." Dean laughed madly. Then he commanded very softly to something only his delirious mind could see. "Heal. Then kill them."

Caleb felt something warm and wet rise up under him from the floor. When he tried to roll away from whatever it was the substance held him firmly in place. It felt like a warm bath. It coated and rolled into his damaged left shoulder like a healing balm.

One of Nate's rent-a-goons suddenly started screaming. He grabbed his leg. What looked like some metallic substance had snaked out like a rope from between the stones on the floor and around his leg. Where it met human tissue the tissue sizzled and dissolved like flesh meeting acid. His leg gave way and suddenly he was on the floor. A tide of silver rose up and enveloped him.

The guy fought and screamed but the silver was like sticky tar.

Then he melted in to a sickening, mess of chunky liquid gore.


	13. Chapter 13

**Author's Notes and Acknowledgments**:

I'd like to thank Ridley C. James for reading some parts of this and offering her feedback. The story is only better for her sharp eye. Not to mention thank her for answering all my stupid questions like 'Is Caleb left or right handed' through the years.

I'd also like to thank all my faithful reviewers and readers and wish them all a very happy and safe holiday season.

**Magazine**- The proper shooting term for 'clip'.

**Warnings**: I'm putting a warning up for gore and body counts.

* * *

********If anyone gets this twice I'm trying to work on formatting. I'm sorry.*************

* * *

Lives are measured in fractions of seconds.

The instant in time when intelligence fails and the body reacts is the moment that will determine if you live or die.

That's why John trained our asses off for years. Why we drill. Why we learned what our physical limits are and how to stretch beyond them. Why we got maneuvers memorized by muscle memory alone. So in that flicker of a moment where terror shuts the intellect down the body would know what to do.

You bust your ass and drag yourself out of bed on those cold winter mornings for times where you got to react to survive. So you respond before your mind can fully comprehend that sickening iron smell is a shit load of flesh blood and the oozing glob of flesh stew coming towards you was once a screaming human being. Where your body responds, flips over and crawls to get away from the gruesome awfulness without you even realizing your doing it.

Bad arm be damned.

Isn't adrenaline a wonderful thing?

Sometimes you hate when your brain is a little slow at catch-up processing.

Other times you're thankful you won't have this horror replayed in your nightmares in full technicolor.

The floor rumbled again.

"Oh James, you sneaky old fox," Nate threw his head back and laughed. "This is glorious."

Not the choice of words Caleb would have used.

Caleb looked briefly back at the pool of horror he was trying to edge away from and tried not to gag.

Nope.

Not the words he would have used at all.

With another rumble the silver lashed out from the floor again.

Another one of Nate's goons dropped the gun he was holding, grabbed his leg and screamed. The silver reached up from the floor and enveloped him.

Yuck.

Messy.

Somehow that gave Dean the opening he needed. Deuce broke free and dove for the gun. Then in one smooth move he rolled to his feet, and aimed. With eyes as cold and as dead as glaciers Dean pulled the trigger. A goon's head exploded in a gruesome mess of blood and bone.

Caleb noted with a certain amount of satisfaction it was his missing gun and it had been the goon that wielded the super-heated electrode to his shoulder.

Ha Ha.

Take that you Son of a Bitch.

Dean dodged a bullet fired in his direction and aimed the gun again. This time another goon's leg exploded right below the knee. The goon crumpled like a house of cards. The lower part of his left leg was lying a few feet away from him. Blood shot all over the walls like a fountain. The goon clutched where his lower leg should have been.

Caleb loved good armor piercing ammo. It was illegal as hell. It made a small hole when it entered and a huge one when it exited. Silver tip it and it may not kill all the baddies but it sure as hell could punch a big enough hole to slow them down.

"Plan A, Damien. Haul ass!" Dean commanded as he grabbed Caleb's shirt collar and started dragging him towards a triangle shaped corridor. Dragging Caleb in front of him Dean continued to lay cover fire. "We need to find a secure location before the Remnants over-run us. We got to get you out of here. Then we've got to find Sammy."

Remnants?

Sammy?

Dean thought they were back in Denver?

Ah, fuck.

Of all the God awful hunts to drift back too…

It had been a hunt that had gone straight to hell. What they thought had been a simple Yeti hunt had turned out to be a nest of Remnants. Remnants were animalistic Zombies with super-human strength, a taste for human meat, and a really bad attitude problem. They liked to rip their prey apart. Nothing short of fire would stop them. You blew off limbs and they'd still keep coming and coming and coming.

What had made that hunt even worse was Caleb had found out the hard way he was a sickle cell carrier. Being a sickle cell carrier generally was no big deal. It gave you an extra shot of resistance against contracting malaria. At least that's how Mac had explained it to him later. It was like the people of Northern European lineage that carried the Delta 32 mutation. Thanks to ancestors that survived the Black Death people that carried the genes in modern times were immune to not only the Plague but HIV as well.

But there was a give and take to being different. People with Delta 32 were immune to HIV but West Nile tended to land them in ICU. Being a Sickle Cell carrier gave you extra resistance against malaria but it also had its draw backs. In some rare instances when you mixed over-exertion, dehydration, and high altitudes it could be deadly because your blood could start clotting.

Not a fact Caleb had wanted to discover as he puked blood and was surrounded ass-deep in remnants. It hit him hard and fast right out of the blue. No warning. It was kind of ironic. Caleb had spent so many years brooding about his father's side of the gene pool he never really thought about his mother's contributions much. That little over-sight had cost him his gall-bladder and a week in ICU.

Yeah, fun times.

Caleb didn't remember too much from that hunt. He remembered not feeling well and then later refusing to leave an injured unable to walk Silas Fox behind. He vaguely remembered pain like something was broken inside and later puking blood. Then Deuce with a group of hunters coming to their rescue Uzis and flame throwers blazing. The Hunters had fought tunnel to tunnel getting them out of here. Next thing he knew he was waking up in ICU. Tubes in place he never wanted to talk about EVER and Mac hovering at his bedside.

When he woke up Dean had been nowhere in sight.

Caleb had found out later that Dean had been called to stand before the Guardian after that hunt. A small group of hunters had argued going after Caleb and Silas wasn't worth the risk. That it was a suicide mission. Dean had listened to their story quietly. After they were done retelling their tale, Deuce had pulled out his gun and had made his point by blowing a hole through the leg of the hunter that had abandoned Caleb and Silas. Then Dean had looked at the group and stated, "The Brotherhood does NOT abandon our own. We bring them home or die trying. Is that understood?"

Funny.

No one had argued with the command.

The group of hunters had come back for them.

Afterwards, however, Dean had been summoned to stand before the Guardian.

The waste of a ring that Dean had blown a hole through had been from one of the older more powerful families of the Brotherhood. Seeing it as an opportunity Ian Hastings had jumped on it with both feet and publicly petitioned Jim. Hastings had claimed it was an unprovoked assault on another member of the Brotherhood. An offense Ian had argued that should cost Dean his ring. Backed in to a corner Jim really had no choice but summon Dean home. Dean had been given the dubious honor of the first hunter in three generations to essentially stand before a Guardian's tribunal.

Everything Caleb knew had been second-hand accounts Bobby had retold at his bedside.

Deuce gave Caleb's shirt another yank.

That snapped Caleb out of his thoughts. He'd been drifting off.

Shock, some higher functional part of his brain informed him.

Not good.

Dean dodged another bullet that went whizzing by them. It missed both them by centimeters and bounced off the stone floor. Then Dean practically threw Caleb in to the corridor. Throwing him around was a pretty amazing feat for Dean considering Caleb outweighed the skinny little shit by thirty, forty pounds of pure muscle. Dean had always been built for speed and not power.

Dean helped him sit up against the wall. Then he glared down at Caleb. "Your left-eyed sights are a pain in the ass. You know that?"

Caleb smiled at him weakly. "You're just jealous because Johnny is leaving me his armories when he checks out."

One nice thing about doing everything in mirror reverse and being left handed and left eye dominate was not too many baddies could use your own gun against you. Especially since Caleb had set the ejection port to smack a right-handed shooter in the face with the used shells and hot gas. It was an added little bit of spiteful insurance.

Being left-handed was one of the reasons Caleb had been assigned to be trained by John, and why his father, despite reservations, had agreed to it. John Winchester was one of the few left-handed hunters the Brotherhood had. Left-handed shooting was more an art. John was one of the few hunters that could teach Caleb the tricks he had needed to know to survive.

Dean smirked at him but it didn't meet his eyes. Then with competent hands Deuce slid the magazine out of the gun and counted the bullets left. Good call. They needed to know how many shots they had left. "You're getting Dad's guns because after all the years Dad smacked Sam in the face with his shell casing. Dad knows Sam has plans to cheerfully melt those bitches into scrap metal."

"Sam could never grasp the concept that we lefties got the outer seats at the table and the far end of the shooting range for a very good reason."

"Sam was always more interested in having the prime spot to sneak off so he could go read. Being able to bitch at Dad was always his secondary motivator." Dean sighed. Then he slid down the wall. Caleb could tell the younger hunter was completely spent. "God, I'm cold." Deuce shivered. Even in the dim light Caleb could tell Dean's fever was making his eyes glassy and bright. "Damien have you seen Sammy and Dad? Are they okay?"

"They're fine." Caleb shot the younger hunter what he hoped was a reassuring smile. Caleb sighed inwardly. Dean still wasn't coherent. Which only made their circumstances all that worse. Caleb ignored his aching shoulder and got his feet under him. Then he used the stone wall as support and slowly made his way to his feet. "You did good back there. Now let me worry about getting us the hell out of here."

_Junior, assess the situation. _

In his mind Caleb could hear John Winchester bark at him.

Surrounded by bad guys. Dean was feverish and semi-delusion. He had a bum arm and was on the boarder end of shock. Minimum Ammo. No supplies. No help coming.

And Nate.

Overall appraisal: Ass-deep in alligators and sinking fast.

Not looking good for warm and fuzzy outcomes.

Advantages: They were in a defendable position and they had more bullets than Nate had bad guys left. The man munching silver was still out there lurking. It was an unknown factor. Plus Nate wanted Deuce alive. They weren't going to come in guns blazing.

Yet.

That only left the hit squad their psychic powers.

"Funny. The Pendragon showed me Orion too." Dean pointed drunkenly.

Pendragon?

What the hell?

Caleb looked up. On the wall over his head was an image of Orion the Hunter in his eternal guard over the Pyramids of Giza.

Wait a minute…

Giza.

The Brotherhood seemed to favor Egyptian floor plans in this region.

Something in the chamber's plan looked eerily familiar.

It mirrored the Temple of Hathor at Dendra.

"Deuce, do you have box cutter or a razor blade on you?"

Dean nodded. He reached in to his boot and handed Caleb a box cutter. "Here."

"I can always count on you and your Winchester-Hidden-Pocket-Everywhere mom purse," Caleb said with a genuine grin as he took the cutter.

Dean's only response was an extended middle finger.

"I think I might have a way out." Caleb informed the younger hunter. "If this place follows the design at Dendra, then at the far end of all these dead-end corridors should be entrances to a hidden vault that runs the entire length of the walls. I just need to find where the stone is loose."

"It should allow us to double back and get the hell out of here," Dean finished for him.

"Exactly."

Dean's eyes suddenly got huge. "Damien what's wrong with your shoulder? There's something glittering on it."

"Not now. Forget it." Caleb ordered as he made his way towards the back of the passage. He needed to find the way in to that vault.

Where was the damned joint in the stone?

Dean got to his feet unsteadily and followed Caleb. "But it looks like molten silver."

"Deuce," Caleb insisted as he fingered the wall. "We'll worry about it later.

Caleb figured if the silver wanted to kill him it would have done it already. If it was eating him slow. Fine. Whatever. Right now he didn't have time to worry about it. They needed to get out of here.

"Damien…" Dean softly touched the silver and it started to glow.

Shit!

Caleb heard the shots before the bullets flew by them. The glowing silver had acted like a beacon to the enemy. He grabbed Dean and hit the dirt. Caleb tried to soften the landing. In midair he twisted them so Deuce landed on top of him. It was a poor attempt at protecting Dean and Caleb knew it. As fragile as he was Dean could easily bleed to death internally from a simple bruise right now.

Dean blinked in shock.

"Deuce ten a clock!"

Dean shifted, pointed the gun in the direction Caleb indicated, and fired.

Their reward was a scream.

Trying to sneak up on a telepath was never a good idea.

"Anymore?" Dean asked softly.

Caleb did a quick scan and shook his head. "None in range." Caleb rolled Dean off of him gently. "Now stay down and let me look for that entrance."

It took him a few minutes but Caleb found where a stone joint was a little different from the rest of the wall.

Bingo!

"Deuce I found it," Caleb called as he started working at the joint trying to loosen it with the box cutter. "It's going to take a little time to loosen and move the slab."

Dean nodded. His eyes never left the direction of the entrance.

"I am getting very tired of this," Nate's voice echoed out of the darkened gloom. Dean rubbed his forehead. Caleb could feel Nate's telepathic push behind it. "Surrender now and I'll allow you both to live." If all else fails use the old telepathic glamour.

_Yeah, right._

Caleb didn't believe that one for a minute.

"This stubbornness is going to get you both nowhere, Hound" Nate called. "I will win. You and Decanus are already conquered. You are simply too obstinate to realize it."

Caleb continued to work on loosening the stone slab in front of him.

There was a sound outside the entrance to the corridor.

"Damien where is he?" Dean yelled from the doorway. He scanned the gloom. "Guide me in."

Caleb looked up from what he was doing and threw his powers out in a net. He had once described it to Deuce as something like internal radar. Psychic powers had different flavors or feels to them. Telepaths felt different from other kinds of talents. Whoever Nate had sent in this time was a telepath. The stupid bastard thought he could cloak himself.

What came next always reminded Caleb of fencing, the angling of power for advantage, the trust and parry looking for weakness in your opponent's mental defenses. Caleb felt his enemy gather his energy. It was comparable to that peculiar feeling as static gathers right before lightening strikes. As his opponent lashed out, Caleb pictured a wall shielding him and Dean and cast his energy out. His adversary's energy bounced off like a rubber ball on a stone wall.

His foe dodged the backlash and struck out again. This time he aimed for Dean. Dean grabbed his head. Caleb gathered his powers and let them go. Caleb's power shattered his challenger's shields like lightening shattering a tree truck. In some part of his mind Caleb could see that unique spark of consciousness that was the very essence of his enemy.

For an eternal moment in time Caleb held everything a human being was in his hands.

Then without hesitation Caleb snuffed it out.

Caleb realized he blew it when Nate laughed.

"Very good, Hound. I knew you had it in you." Nate's voice called from the gloom. "But it once again demonstrates exactly what a miserable failure Missouri is as an Advisor. She forgot to instruct you that through your bond I can pinpoint Dean."

"Deuce back of the cave!" Caleb shouted.

No!

The gun went flying from Dean's hand.

With one powerful jerk Dean flew toward the entrance.

God damn, fucking telekinesis.

"Damien!" Dean shouted as he got dragged toward the door and disappeared in to the gloom of the main chamber. "In your boot…"

Caleb started kicking the stone slab he loosened. He didn't have much time. Now that Dean was out of the crossfire Nate was going to cover this place with a barrage of bullets. Dean was who he wanted. Caleb was expendable.

Caleb heard the click of weapons priming.

Son of a bitch!

With a final strong kick, the heavy stone slab gave. It tumbled inward to the hidden vault. With one smooth move Caleb grabbed the gun Dean dropped and climbed in to the crypt. Behind him he could hear the rain of machine gun fire as it bounced off the stone walls of the chamber behind him.

Nate wasn't taking any chances.

He heard footsteps coming.

Caleb leaped to his feet and ran.

He sprinted down the long narrow passageway. He was happy the triangular ceiling of the place was high enough he didn't have to stoop as he ran. He took quick stock of the layout of the T-shaped passages in front of him. He hoped to disappear in to the gloom.

Caleb heard in the distance the sounds of Nate's men climbing in after him.

Wonderful.

You gotta love those days at the office when the baddies are determined to kill you.

When he had distance between him and his pursuers, Caleb ducked in to one of the side chambers.

He needed to come up with a plan.

Fast.

Caleb listened to the darkness and heard nothing. He had managed to slip his hunters for the time being. Caleb reached into a secret pocket in his boot and pulled out a red glow stick. He gave it a good shake and snapped it to let the chemicals release.

As the dim, red light pierced the gloom, Caleb smiled.

Weapons of various sized and designs were hung and piled along the walls with great care.

Halleluiah!

He had found an armory.

Then he reached in to his other boot and pulled out what Deuce had slipped to him earlier.

Yup, MacGyver came through again.

For as long as Caleb could remember Dean had been working on an electro magnetic pulse or "Ghost Grenade". Dean had a theory that ghosts rode a certain specific EMF frequency. If someone could find that specific frequency or mix of frequencies a ghost tapped into, the baddie could be scrambled**.** Dean hoped to create an EMF weapon that a hunter could use to create a feedback loop and jumble the electro-magnetic frequency long enough for a hunter to clear the area of a spirit safely.

So far the attempts had been miserable failures.

Its results on psychics on the other hand….

It had taken Caleb two days to wake up after he had been accidentally caught in the weapon's wake during a hunt. Instead doing what it was originally designed to, it caused a nasty bio-electrical feedback loop in anyone that happened to be the least bit psychically gifted. Dean realized immediately what weapon implications the device could have. Not risking it could fall in to enemy hands Deuce had even gone so far as to rip out pages that had the mere mention of the gadget out of his hunter's journal and burn them. After Caleb had gotten out of the hospital he and Deuce had gotten in to one of their few rare screaming matches when Dean had told Caleb he was giving up on the project completely.

The device Caleb held in his hands now wasn't the original prototype. Apparently Dean hadn't quite given up on his ghost grenade completely. That made Caleb very happy. If Deuce ever managed to perfect the device it could save a lot of unnecessary Hunter injuries. This prototype was in the body of one of those stupid electronic pet key-chains. Dean had wired in the small battery that powered the light he'd taken apart. The battery acted as a power source for a little added juice.

Caleb pushed a button.

A scrolling message read: _Push red button to arm. Two minute countdown. All psychics get clear. This means you Dickhead!_

Ah, wasn't that sweet.

Deuce gave him his own idiot warning.

Caleb heard a shuffling noise coming in his direction. He looked around and grabbed what looked like a dagger off the wall. Right now he needed stealth. A gunshot would relay his position to the enemy. The dagger still looked razor sharp. Caleb was betting his life on its sharpness. He slipped the glow-stick in to his boot to snuff the light and Deuce's ghost grenade in to the other. Then he ducked in to the shadows and waited.

Caleb didn't wait long.

Two armed men slowly made their way down the corridor.

They weren't even trying to disguise their approach.

Caleb peered in to the gloom trying to distinguish if these two men had back-up or not.

Nope.

Man, these were cocky bastards.

Amateurs think hand-to-hand is about ability and honor.

It's not.

It's about killing or maiming another human being. Hand-to-hand is about learning the weaknesses of the human body and using those weaknesses to destroy it. It's the reason Jim and John stressed self-control so strongly growing up. Once you learn these skills it's like carrying a loaded gun around with you all the time. Losing your temper and letting loose isn't an option any more. Hand-to-hand combat is ugly. It's brutal. Doesn't matter if it's Supernatural or normal human beings, any person that says differently is a moron. There is nothing admirable about watching the light fade from another person's eyes. It's just horrifying.

Caleb waited in the shadows for the perfect moment.

Then he struck.

Leaping from the shadows Caleb stuck the dagger in to the first guy's neck and carotid artery. Blood sprayed. The enemy was dead before his body had a chance to hit the floor. The remaining man swung his gun in Caleb's direction. With one smooth move Caleb grabbed the arm and hit a pressure point. His attacker's arm went limp and the gun dropped to the floor. Then before his enemy could get a warning shout off, Caleb crushed his windpipe.

The guy laid there clawing at his throat, last instincts trying to desperately draw a breath in through his demolished airway. The guy's wild eyes looking up at Caleb pleading for help. Caleb grabbed the dagger out of his companion's cooling body. Then he looked down at his dying foe. Their eyes met and Caleb nodded.

Then Caleb ended it.

He put the dagger right through the guy's heart.

Caleb granted him a quicker and more merciful death than suffocating on his own blood.

This was Caleb's personal code of honor.

The day he stopped being able to meet his dying opponents eyes was the day he hung up his guns and left hunting forever.

He pulled Dean's ghost grenade out of his boot.

Now he had a plan.

It was time to kick Nate's sorry ass back to the cesspool of Hell that spawned him.


	14. Chapter 14

**Author's Notes:**

_De oppresso liber_- 'To liberate the oppressed'- Motto of the Green Berets, US Army Special Forces.

The urban legend between Nazi Germany and the Occult. Not something I made up.

Recon- Short for Force Recon the US Marine equivalent of the Green Berets or SEALs.

Alphabet Soup- Government slang for the various government agencies with letters in their name.

* * *

Brotherhood

* * *

Sun Tzu one wrote: _Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance._

It was a lesson from his father's favorite handbook Dean Winchester held close. He had learned very young perceptions and biases were something you could use against people. For example people tended to correlate mute with dumb. An overly quiet child adults paid no attention too, tended to leave alone to listen in corners or air ducts.

Reflect what people expected to see and they wouldn't look past the surface.

As he got older he learned people tended to have this preconceived notion that pretty was the equivalent of dim-witted. It was something you couldn't fight. Instead he adapted. Discovered that off color comments at right moments, and blank looks went a long way when you got caught in places where you weren't suppose to be. Or that if you threw on tight jeans and an attitude that people tended to remember the outfit and the mannerisms. Not the face wearing them.

Playing dumb worked for him.

Made people underestimate him.

The way Chrome Teeth absently petted Zack in front of everyone like a piece of property made Dean's stomach churn.

The thought of Zack possibly trapped in his own mind screaming?

That made it even worse.

He fought the urge to yank at his bindings. Dean wanted the baddies to misjudge him for a pretty face and give him an opening to kill them. Damien's screams were going to echo through his dreams for a very long time to come. Nate hurt one of his. For that Dean wanted the son of a bitch to bleed.

Nope. Dean wasn't the forgiving type.

But like a crocodile Dean understood patience.

Like Sun Tzu said: _He who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy who is not, will be victorious._

A good hunter knew how to settle in the water and wait for his chance.

Chrome Teeth looked at him again and licked his lips suggestively. Then in heavily accented English, "There's thin line between pleasure and pain."

"If you think you're man enough to take someone that isn't a mindless zombie, Little Man." Dean shot him a challenging glare. It was a look that usually meant something was going to die. Horribly. "Try it."

"Once you get a taste of my touch young one. You will be begging me for it."

The look on Chrome Teeth's face as he stepped forward confirmed Dean's suspicions.

Zack was being psychically coerced.

Chrome Teeth's powers were tied up with physical contact somehow.

Nice to know.

It just might be his ticket to freedom.

"Enough!" Nate commanded. With a simple flick of his head he yanked the bigger man back. Then to Chrome Teeth, "We have no time for this. We are working with a very small window of opportunity. We need the boy."

"Yeah, let's hang around. Who's scared of a little man munching silver?" Dean asked innocently.

"You promised me this one for my help, Natas." Chrome Teeth sized Dean up hungrily again. "That was my price."

"Oh, a lowly human like me is going to work for Human-Trafficking-Are-Us? Really?" Dean replied snidely. "I just can't wait. I hear the union benefits are great."

Yup, Dean was going to enjoy punching this creep's one way ticket straight to hell.

The fact he got his rocks off on Damien's screams only added to Dean's motivation.

"I would advise you to be quiet or I will gag you." Nate glared down at him. "The situation has changed." Nate turned to Chrome Teeth and informed him calmly. "I will keep our agreement. You will have the boy after my use for him is over." Then he looked down at Dean with an amused look. "That is, if you can hold him. That might be a more difficult feat than you realize."

"Real group of high class people you're dealing with here, Nate." That's why Dean blamed the aura that danced before his eyes and the fever frying his brain for him blurting out, "So, why Zack?"

"If you're trying to distract me so our young Knight can try to mount a rescue. It won't work." Nate raised an eyebrow. "Interesting paths your mind wanders down. I shouldn't be surprised. I'll play along. Why Zack what?"

Well that worked well.

Screw it.

In for a penny in for a pound…

His Dad would say setting personal feelings aside and intelligence gathering was always a good thing.

"Zack." He cleared his throat and gestured at the other hunter. He tried to shake off the fuzzy, disconnected feeling of the world around him.

God damn it.

Pull your shit together.

Damien was walking in to a trap.

And there wasn't a damned thing he could do about it in his current position.

He needed an opening.

Dean shook his head trying to clear it.

The world had become a starburst of color in his head.

It had to be the fever.

It all blended in to a deafening chorus of humming like the vibrating song of singing crystal. The song pressed on him. Circle within circle. It bodily pressed on him; earth, fire and water. A scolding hot wind as it danced across his skin. Wisps of memories, fragments of beings danced around him. The night sky of crystal stars above his head glimmered and sparkled.

That's when he realized the fountain represented the galactic center. All things would begin, end, and begin there again. Expanding Universe theory, a more skeptical part of his mind threw out. Circle within circle forming a never ending spiral.

Dean narrowed his eyes.

Wait…

The fountain.

'_You summoned us, Rider. We came.' _

Dean stiffened. He had heard the voice so clearly in his mind.

Up over his head a silver dragon flew.

No.

What ever the fuck he was seeing and hearing wasn't there.

Concentrate and block it out.

Dean yanked at his bindings again. Pain helped ground him. Ignore the humming and colors. Man, his brain was really cooking. He turned to Nate again. "Why did you choose Zack to brain zap and set as a double agent?"

Nate shot him an amused look. "Come now, you must know why?"

"I'm guessing that Zack is Jim's son." Dean shook his head trying to clear it again and studied his opponent thoughtfully. "I saw that right away. But this is not really about Jim. Is it? If it was you would have used Zack to go gunning for Jim a long time ago. That only leaves you're trying to screw over Julian. I just can't figure out how."

"Very good." Nate tilted his head. The look the other man gave him only helped nail home that Nate was completely bat-shit. Sane was just a mask Nate threw on sometimes to go out in public. "Julian never trusted psychics. We were nothing but expendable in his eyes. Do you have any idea what it is like to serve someone you know you'll never please?"

Yeah, he did.

He laughed bitterly.

Dean understood too well.

Knew how that bitterness at never appeasing an authority figure could dig in and fester if you let it. Appreciated how the anger could make one want to lash out. It was a trap Dean had danced around for years. He was very aware poor Sam got the blunt of it sometimes.

"That still doesn't explain Zack."

The destroyed side of Nate's face crinkled up on one side in a twisted grin. "Doesn't it?"

Not unless Julian….

Jim never looked at other women in all the years Dean had known him. Emma being the only one that held the pastor's heart.

But a Guardian would never do that.

Not that act of ultimate betrayal.

The Guardian was supposed to be the father of all.

A hunter's refuge and safety in the darkness.

Home.

Shit.

"Julian pulled a page out of Merlin's play book with Uther and Igraine." Dean felt physically ill. "He was dying and desperate. With some sort of enchantment he tried to breed the next Guardian didn't he? Zack's mother is from a very old and powerful line of the Brotherhood. Then Julian took the child and hid him away from Jim."

God, Dean knew a cancer ran deep in the Brotherhood.

The fact that they tolerated monsters like Durham in their ranks because he came from an 'Old Family' had nailed that home to him years ago.

But did the rot run that deep?

"Oh, indeed it does my young friend. Be warned. With insights like that 'accidents' tend to happen." Nate replied pointing at his head.

"But you knew didn't you?" Dean whispered softly. "You were a candidate to be the next Scholar and with your powers you knew exactly how bad it was. You and Jim tried to speak out and argue with Victor."

"Griffin Potter did as well and Victor would never listen to any of us," Nate replied bitterly. The insanity was starting to flow back in to his eyes like the tide on a beach. "He was our voice and Victor would do nothing. He was too afraid it would blow the Brotherhood apart to civil war. Instead they shattered the balance. Warrior. Mystic. Psychic. Together we are to stand as equals in the three circles."

Nate's injuries were starting to make a horrifying amount of sense.

"But you wouldn't back down and Jim's call for change got too loud didn't it? Someone tried to kill Jim." Dean whispered. "That's what Jim meant when he said you took a bullet trying to rescue him. You took a bullet in the head that was meant for him."

"Indeed." Nate tapped his head. "James should have let me die that night but he didn't. A fact I will always hate him for."

But Nate survived the head wound.

Damaged. Broken. Unstable.

And dangerously powerful.

So damned powerful the Brotherhood had no idea what to do with him.

Something very similar to what happened to Mac after his car wreck must have happened to Nate Dean theorized. Nate's healing brain switched or rewired something in its efforts to recover from the damage. Mac's accident had switched a completely latent talent to one of the most powerful known. What if something similar happened to an already overt talent?

Drive them right over the edge.

Crap.

Dean so did not want to understand or pity Nate.

It would make it that much harder to pull the trigger on him.

"I would not let Julian lobotomize me." Nate spat out venomously. "I fought back."

"Later Jim did the only thing he could think of to try to shield you." Dean once again shook his head to clear it and studied Nate grimly. "When Julian declared your death sentence Jim demanded the Right of Vidar." He thought about Sal's dead unseeing eyes and wondered if Jim regretted that decision now. Hindsight was a bitch and ultimately 20/20.

"Indeed. Now by the bands we are soul bound together until one of us is dead. That is the price of Vidar."

Dean's world became fuzzy as Nate ranted on.

The dragon over Dean's head continued to circle.

'_You summoned us, All Father. We came.' _

* * *

Brotherhood

* * *

The man was known only as Slate.

He had long since given up his real name and two marriages to service to his country.

Like normal Merlin had stirred up a shit kettle of stink.

And like usual Slate's high-up bosses in the CIA weren't happy.

One of the many reasons Jim Murphy was a royal pain in the ass.

Slate always thought it was a shame. Murphy had been one of the best the Green Berets had ever produced. An orphan ward of the state James Murphy had joined up at eighteen. He had won a field officer's commission right out of the gate too. The Army didn't hand those suckers out like candy. There were few snipers out there that not only had his enemy body count but his ability to hide-in-plain-sight intelligence gathering abilities. Given the handle of 'Merlin' in Nam, there were few men that could pull the rabbit out of their pointy hat and win the day like Jim Murphy could.

Then Murphy had followed his heart.

Which was a damned shame.

One day on leave he had met Emma O'Neil a young women heavily active in her church. They had fallen in love and married. Through Emma, Jim had become heavily active in the budding Civil Rights movement bubbling up in churches all through the United States at the time. A movement many in the US government did not support at the time.

Jim had resigned to prevent any conflict of interest.

Merlin had always taken his oath of: _De oppresso liber_- 'To liberate the oppressed' a little too seriously in Slates humble opinion.

Emma, his church, fighting a good fight, and a quiet life of farming had been Murphy's choice.

Then Emma had died of a sudden heart condition.

And Merlin vanished with all the classified information in his head.

That had sent about every three-letter, alphabet-soup intelligence agency scrambling in panic mode.

Murphy had reemerged out of nowhere roughly two years later with Julian Smith.

Julian Smith's records had been so highly classified not even Slate with his clearances could see them. There had been rumors however. Rumors that said the scary urban legend of Nazi Germany's ties to the powers of Hell and the occult had been true. That Julian Smith had been summoned to the White House in the dead of night and asked by President Franklin Roosevelt to lead a small hand-picked group of men in to Germany to do the impossible.

After hooking up with Julian, Jim had taken on 'special' cases.

He took missions involving the Supernatural or objects tied to it.

That made him a direct pain in Slate's ass through the years.

Not to mention that it had put Merlin on the most wanted list of quite a few nasty artifact smugglers.

Like his good old buddy Janfar.

The underground antiquities trade was big money. Not only did it loot knowledge and rob humanity of its common shared heritage it helped fund very not-so-nice things. Things like ramming planes in to buildings and blowing up marketplaces full of women and children.

Murphy had shut down enough high money-making networks and returned enough looted artifacts to raise a few international eyebrows through the years. Then he later recruited Mackland Ames with his money and connections. Not to mention veteran Recon Marine John Winchester to the ranks of his little group of misfits had raised a few more.

Winchester especially.

Winchester had a dossier as thick and colorful reading as Murphy's with most of it not going to be unclassified for another twenty, possibly thirty years yet. Winchester's grandkids would probably be handed the medals due to the man on behalf of a grateful nation.

And Slate would give his left nut to know what the hell blackmail material Murphy and Winchester had on various high-ranking government officials. Hell, Slate wouldn't have been surprised at the mere thought their shared classified intelligence a few bureaucrats' heads had exploded.

Slate carefully positioned his cane and bad leg carefully as he sat down at the small café table. From the corner of his eye he caught sight of Janfar's approach.

The worst part of his job was faking smiles at scum.

"You summoned me, my old friend."

Janfar nodded and sat down. "You have probably heard I have finally caught my elusive query?"

"I had heard rumors you had the elusive Merlin in your possession." Slate nodded and took a sip of his tea. "I have some men that would be very interested in getting their hands on him. Old scores. And they are willing to pay quite generously." Slate slid a piece of paper towards the greedy artifact smuggler. "You will find the sum is more than enough to compensate for your time and effort."

Janfar had a very doubtful look on his face until he opened the slip of paper and read the number.

Slate thought the goon's eyes just might just bug out of his head.

"You will wire this to my accounts?" Janfar asked as he schooled the shock off his face.

"Of course," Slate replied. "My clients are very interested. The only issue is smuggling him out of the country." He pulled the overnight bag out from under his chair and handed it to Janfar. "I arranged a change of clothes for Murphy and Dr. Raji. My client's conditions are that they are to be cleaned and relatively unharmed at the arranged time of pick up in twenty-four hours."

Janfar searched the overnight bag carefully. "Agreed."

"I will see that the money gets wired to your account."

Slate didn't smirk until he had finished his tea and Janfar had left.

Two nice predictable things about bad guys, you could always appeal to their sense of greed and the fact they didn't check pastor's collars carefully.

Especially when said pastor's collar was carefully packed with C-4.

Slate got up and carefully with his cane and positioned weight on his bad leg.

Slate doubted Jim Murphy even remembered the young Ranger he had refused to leave behind in the jungles of Nam. A young GI the Green Beret he had carried to safety. A man that had lost a chunk of his leg to a land mine and whose rescue had cost Murphy six months in a Vietnam POW camp.

And the man known only as Slate had every intention of keeping it that way.


	15. Chapter 15

**Author's Notes**:

I'd like to give a shout out to Montez's Brotherhood story "Parting Gift" she took a vague concept of mine and is wrapping it up in a wonderful story. She writes a great Sam and the aftermath of him being possessed by the ultimate evil. I encourage anyone that might have missed it to check it out.

For all of you a little rusty on your Roundtable myths:

**The Siege Perilous**- In the Arthurian legends that was the mythical seat of Galahad at the Round Table forged by Merlin. It would do great harm to anyone else that tried to sit on it but the true Grail Knight. I am taking quite a few liberties with it actually is this story.

**Gawain**- By the earliest Welsh legends Gawain was Arthur's nephew, a healer, and also the 'First Knight' of the round table and Arthur's second before Lancelot. Gawain actually pre-dates Lancelot and Galahad appearances in stories that is why I used him.

* * *

Brotherhood

* * *

When John Winchester took him out on his first hunt the very first lesson the older hunter taught him was: Lose the shine.

Anything that reflected light gave away positions and made you vulnerable. Gun barrels, buttons, even boot-lace loops were painted over with a permanent black marker.

Later on Caleb would come to understand how apt of a parallel that was to hunting.

Anything that reflected the least bit of light, decency or empathy made you vulnerable.

No reflection.

It was a rule that every hunter lived by.

Except the Brotherhood, they wore their silver rings openly in defiance of the darkness.

And well…

Deuce.

He wore his amulet in the center of his chest like a target. Like he was boldly daring the bad guys to come and try to get him. It almost was like a fucking sheriff's badge from the Old Westerns Bobby loved to watch.

As Caleb watched the light slowly vanish from John Winchester over the years he'd come to understand why you needed separators. Mac was right. You needed those lines between the hunter and the man. A hunter needed to hold on to what made him human. You couldn't eat, sleep, and breathe a world where the monster under the bed made a gory mess out of the average American family 24 hours, seven days a week without losing your mind. The longer you stare into the abyss the more it reflected back.

Caleb's line had started simple.

A silver bracelet he had found on his pillow with a crayon written note from Deuce after his first hunt. Baring a simple Native American Medicine Shield design in the center was a chunk of honey colored amber or "Sun Stone'. Caleb knew enough to know a Medicine Shield was given at a turning point in a warrior's life. They represented a warrior's life path and physical as well as spiritual protection.

Caleb had been so bowled over he had almost hidden the bracelet away. Locked it up to guard with the few things he considered truly precious. The book Mac had given him. The quilt his grandmother had made.

Instead he had worn it.

The expression on Dean's face as he walked down stairs had been worth it.

That's how Caleb's little ritual got started.

The bracelet only went on after all other remnants of the hunter got stripped or washed off. The boots got kicked off. The gun was secured. The body cleansed with salt scrub and a nice hot shower.

Through the years it had come to symbolize 'Damien' and 'Off duty'.

The light.

If Nate thought Caleb would ever give that up without a fight.

Fuck him.

He was sorely mistaken.

Caleb dispassionately studied his hunters from the shadows. Nate hadn't sent any of the big guns after him. These guys were amateurs.

It didn't make sense.

If Nate wanted him dead why wouldn't he have sent the more experienced guys in? Like Zack who was a fellow trained Brotherhood Hunter? Or any of Nate's more competent cronies like the huge mountain of a creep Caleb had all so nicely dubbed Chrome Teeth? Hell used Deuce as a shield and sent the guns in blazing knowing Caleb would hesitate to shoot back?

It all equaled trap.

Problem was Caleb couldn't see where Nate was trying to spring it and how.

Oh, happy day.

Caleb carefully made his way back to his hiding place. Deuce's little theory about sand stone acting as a buffer against psychics had been right. He'd let Dean know so his best friend could happily gloat obscenely about being right later. So far that had been the only thing going for Caleb. The thick sandstone walls made it impossible for Nate and his remaining goons to scan for him. It was like trying to feel where you were going through pea-soup fog.

He tiredly leaned up against the sandstone walls of the small cavity he was using as cover. God he hurt. Every damned muscle in his body ached. His injured left shoulder's itch only added to the chorus of misery.

Caleb supposed getting tortured via electrical shock would do that to you.

Really not something he ever wanted to find out.

Ever.

Next time?

He was headed to a five-star sky resort in Colorado and a nice bubbling, multi-jet hot-tub to chase slutty supermodel sky bunnies.

Screw saving the world.

The bad thing about letting your guard down to indulge in your misery is you don't see ambushes coming. Caleb wasn't prepared to be tackled from behind and sent tumbling.

John would so kick his ass for that one.

The world spun as they went tumbling as a rock ledge gave.

Caleb saw the glint of a knife gliding downward towards him.

Next thing Caleb knew he was falling and hitting a stone floor.

Hard.

Oh yeah, the day was getting better and better.

Bright spot.

At least the shoulder didn't hurt anymore.

The bruised ribs hurt worse.

Sun Tzu once wrote: _Throw your soldiers into positions whence there is no escape, and they will prefer death to flight. If they will face death, there is nothing they may not achieve._

The great master was talking about Death Ground.

Back to the wall. No retreat. No surrender.

That frozen moment where one stares an enemy down and recognizes only one of you is making it out of here alive. Caleb let his adversary look in to his cold vacant eyes. Let him see they were about to do the most real thing two human beings could do to each other.

With his opponent posed over him Caleb knew he was going to lose this fight.

The human body is a machine.

It can do some miraculous things when the mind overrides it for a while. Go beyond limits ever imagined. That's why true warriors condition the psyche as well as the body when they train. There is a line however where your body will simply say fuck you. It hits a wall. A place where shock, dehydration took such a large toll it shuts down. A moment where your body had been pushed beyond all its limits and simply couldn't give you anymore despite what the mind and will wanted.

Problem was Caleb's battered body just didn't have any more left to give.

He had hit his wall.

His foe punched him hard.

Caleb saw stars.

And at that instance he knew he was going to die.

_I'm so sorry Deuce. _

The floor rumbled.

Suddenly a strange golden glow came from the center of the chamber. Then his adversary dropped the knife and started making low whimpering noises. A noise that implied suddenly his vocal cords weren't working. An animal like noise Caleb had never heard before. And Caleb prayed never to hear again.

The yellow glow in the middle of the room got brighter.

His enemy grabbed his eyes as these brown leathery patches started growing on his face and hands. All the while a strange mist was evaporating from him.

Shit….

Caleb scrambled back.

His opponent's face contorted in to a frozen scream. It was going to haunt Caleb's nightmares for a very long time to come.

He poked at what was left of his opponent.

There was nothing left but collapsed flesh and tough leathery chunks of skin.

At his feet was one dehydrated, very dead, human mummy.

Holy fucking shit!

Then it crumbled in to dust and fragments of bone.

The water in his body was…just… gone.

Behind the pile of dust lurked the silver.

Kind of like some guardian angel blob.

Caleb looked at the silver than over at the strange glowing orb in the center of the room. He cleared his throat. Then he looked down at the human remains at his feet. "Um… Thanks?"

Suddenly his ring vibrated and at Caleb's feet where the silver used to be stood a figure of a man.

What the hell?

Caleb backed away slowly until he felt his back hit the wall.

He hoped that this was something ancient Deuce let loose and not some subconscious demonstration of his Guardian abilities that Dean's feverish mind was somehow projecting outwards. Dressed in ancient armor and a cloak the silver figure didn't speak but instead pointed to a portion of the wall behind Caleb.

What he was seeing had to be some physical manifestation of a collective ancestral memory pulled to this plain.

This had to be the Muninn.

Fuck.

Some of what Mujib said earlier clicked in to place.

If this was a sample of what Dean was capable of after he became a full-fledged Guardian…

That was a pretty terrifying thought.

Caleb didn't need to think about those possible revelations.

They made his head hurt.

It had been a shity, I've-been-tortured, I-really-need-some-Johnny Walker type of day already.

Before Caleb could blink the silver figure abruptly turned to water and splashed to the floor. The water's remnants rolled between the stones on the floor and vanished.

Gone.

He took a deep centering breath. His aching ribs screamed at him in protest.

Well that had been…

Interesting?

Run screaming in to the night terrifying?

Both?

In his line of work it was a fine line.

Caleb looked around. He had fallen into a circular chamber when the floor had given out. A large chunk of amber in the center was what was giving off the soft golden glow. Its illumination gave Caleb enough light to see brightly colored paintings on the walls and the ceiling painted a bright breath-taking sky blue.

It was like the day to the other chamber's night.

He got up slowly and went to examine the imagines on the wall.

There were four large paintings on the wall spaced equally between each other. They were symbolic of the ancient Egyptian gateways for souls. Over every picture was an early symbol for each element. Earth, Wind, Fire and Water the very basic building blocks of alchemy. Not only did the paintings on the walls tie in to make a sacred circle of protection, Caleb was willing to bet dollars for doughnuts that each of those images aligned with an astronomical alignment too.

Below the one marked 'water' was an image of the tree of life with a great white plain and an opened dragon's mouth at the base of it. At the base of the dragon's mouth were small figures of humans. In the background was a picture of Orion in perfect summer solstice alignment in the sky. In the northern hemisphere Orion is a winter constellation. Here it was the very opposite. Orion rose around the time of the spring equinox. Here the Hunter was the harbinger of the wet season's life-giving rains.

Nothing really explained why he'd been brought here.

And Caleb knew he had been led here and literally dropped in this chamber for some reason.

So the real question was why?

A soft golden glow came out from behind a stone beneath the painting and a stone in the wall slid forward.

The silver flowed down from behind the rock on to the floor and once again vanished into the stone floor.

Wow.

Nifty trick.

Caleb grabbed the loose stone and pulled.

It slid free.

Behind the stone was a very old looking leather pouch. Inside the pouch contained a silver cross pendent wrapped in embroidered silk.

The cross was distinctively Celtic design. The four even arms showed a heavy influence of Greek or early Christian. He was no expert but if Caleb had to place the time period it was made very early medieval. It might even date back to the fall of Rome, time of Arthur and his Roundtable. The workmanship and intricate metal work was magnificent. Caleb had never seen anything like it. In the very center of the cross visible through a large gem stone of translucent amber was the very familiar three circle design. He ran his thumb over the warm smooth stone in the pendant's center. It glowed at his touch with a soft inner fire.

When Caleb flipped it over and saw the symbol on the back.

That's when he nearly dropped the pendent in shock.

In Latin there was an inscription that read, _'Beware the Siege Perilous'_

Below the inscription was the symbol of a hawk in the center of the sun.

The mark of the May Hawk.

Sir Gawain.

Gawain had been the first Knight before Lancelot. By legend he pulled his strength from the 'fire of life' or the sun, wrote the Round Table code of honor, and thanks to Mordred's treachery later died of the wounds inflicted by Lancelot.

But why?

Why had he been given this?

His eyes were once again drawn up to the painting above him.

There in the painting one of the figures at the dragon's mouth held a glowing amber orb

Caleb studied the cross and the painting again.

Then it snapped in to place.

The ironed peg dragon message they had found in the chamber with the bodies earlier.

The pendent and its stone were a key and he had been brought to this chamber to fetch it.

A key to what or where?

He didn't know.

But his gut told him Dean did.

He remembered Dean deliriously rambling earlier about the Pendragon showing him Orion. Through the Muninn, Dean had somehow tapped in to the Brotherhood's ancient dead and their secrets. Their knowledge was now buried deep inside Dean's subconscious. Like a computer file download with the information waiting to be accessed when needed. Caleb doubted Dean even realized it was there.

His mission to get Dean out of here and find Jim was more important than ever.

"It's too bad your mission is going to fail miserably," a familiar voice announced from the shadows.

Nate.

Damn it.

As Nate stepped out of the gloom he resembled Lucifer stepping out of hell.

Well, Caleb now knew what trap Nate had been planning for him.

And like a moron he walked right into it.

"Only a true Knight would be able to access the stone." Nate smiled at him. "Now if you would kindly hand over Gawain's Key, Hound."

"You want this key, Nate?" Caleb's grip tightened around the pendent. He thought of the ghost grenade hidden in his boot. Caleb's smirk was more a challenge or a primal baring of teeth. "Come and get it."


End file.
